WINNETKA, Calif. — Keeping children entertained, while also educating them from home, is a challenge most parents of school-aged kids have been dealing with for the past five months. When you're a mom like Dee Clifford with two high achieving children, the pressure is even more intense. Her 9-year-old daughter Ruby’s top college picks include UCLA, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford.

When Dee considered the idea of sending Ruby back to what she calls “crisis learning,” Dee decided it was not the right choice. “In terms of the crisis learning, she didn’t enjoy it,” Dee said. “She was bored, she was sad. I didn’t want her going into the fall with those sentiments.”

Ruby has been at a private school since daycare. While Dee and her husband like Ruby’s current school, they weren’t keen on the limitations of the new distance learning program. So they began looking at other options. “We just thought that, how can we give her the tools she needs to be successful in an alternative fashion? And so right away I thought homeschooling might be the best route for us.”

While she is just entering 4th grade, Ruby is already almost at the 8th grade reading level. She even helped teach her 5-year-old brother, Axel, how to read this summer. Dee researched hundreds of homeschooling options that would be tailor-made for Ruby’s high achievement level. “You can file a PSA, which means that your own private school and you can do whatever you want with your child,” Dee said. “Or you can join a homeschool charter, which is what we did.”

Once she made that decision, Dee spent much of the summer combing through various charter schools to find just the right one for Ruby. “I'm really eager to get this correct. So sometimes I'm up until 3 a.m. researching the right curriculum the right way to do this,” she said.

Eventually Dee and her husband decided on the tuition-free, public charter school program called Compass. Dee explained that the charter school actually provides educational funding to build each student’s curriculum. Plus, it’s turning out to be considerably less expensive than private school.

“We were paying $8,600 a year for her private school tuition, as well as an additional $10,000 for sports and extracurricular,” Dee said. “But with the homeschool charter, we're actually getting $2,800 to use.”

That $2,800 goes towards the cost of a variety of classes and activities offered by hundreds of different academic and extracurricular vendors. Ruby is interested in taking a holistic cooking class as well as horseback riding and trapeze. “I like trying new things. It’s a new step for me,” she explained with a smile.

Dee is looking forward to being partnered with other home study families that will allow Ruby to thrive academically and socially.

As for Ruby, she is also looking forward to trying homeschooling for the first time. “I'm actually kinda excited because I like to stay home. I can, like, sleep in! It just feels nice," she said. This might not have been the answer Mom was hoping to hear from her future Ivy Leaguer, but having a happy child is what ultimately matters to Dee in the long run.

For more info on Compass Charter Homeschooling, visit here.