For me, the middle of July has always represented the deepest recesses of summertime. Growing up in coastal North Carolina, summer was when a good portion of local businesses made their year. So, summers were long, busy, salty affairs. School, on the other hand, felt like it was 1,000 days away. It’d be a sin for a kid to have to go to school in July, I would have told you, even more recently.

We kids near the beach weren’t really at risk of such cruel torture, to be completely honest.

Local businesses and politicians understood perfectly well what the hot and humid season means for local coastal economies. They actively guarded summertime for school-aged kids so as not to undermine their own labor supply (seafood platters will not serve themselves, as it turns out). So, there was no real choice in the matter; not that I’d have chosen any differently.

Now, on this hot summer day some 30 years later, I come to tell of how smitten I am that my two eldest children started school this past Monday — in July! What’s more, their mother and I CHOSE to do this to them.

Even I winced a little while typing that, flashing back to 90s summers on the Crystal Coast, but don’t go calling Child Protective Services on us — that feeling of discomfort was quickly displaced by one of distinct appreciation. Maybe a touch of pride, too.

While these days are often and understandably associated with summertime sloth, for a growing number of families across North Carolina this week is circled on the calendar as “Back to School” for year-round students. What was tantamount to a crime when I was a kid, now, as a parent who can appreciate the value of freedom in education, feels like a blessing.

But the nature of the blessing has less to do with a year-round schedule and more to do with the fact that the option to choose a different education and community for my children existed at all. When my wife and I first bought a home in the area, sharing dreams of filling it with kids, that option was not available.

In 2013, not having multiple education options didn’t seem overly concerning to us as parents. We as parents are products of North Carolina’s public schools (with long summers!) and received a solid foundation for a productive life. In 2024, that consideration feels very different.

Luckily for our family, and countless others across the Tar Heel State, we had options. The options didn’t magically appear, though; they grew out of good policy.

Over the last decade, conservatives in the state legislature have worked to enshrine educational freedom in statute, while honoring the constitutional mandate to ensure a universal quality education is made accessible to all children.

The Opportunity Scholarship Program may have broken the seal on school choice in North Carolina, giving kids in low-income families who are struggling in their public school an opportunity to pursue a better private option where they can excel. The program was expanded gradually until, last year, the legislature removed all income caps, effectively making it a universal school choice voucher available to any North Carolina student. (Funding it adequately, however, is a different matter.)

Over the same time period, the entire ethos around education in North Carolina became more aligned with the freedom to choose what was best for your child. Importantly, calls for school choice reached a crescendo during the pandemic panic of 2020, as parents were faced with bureaucrat-mandated school closures and increased awareness of politically corrupted public school curricula. Already sporting favorable homeschooling laws, our state saw an explosion of homeschooling numbers at the same time, too.

The gradual cultivation of this ethos since 2014 gave encouragement to champions of education who were themselves willing to invest in offering another choice for education. One of those champions is named Robert Luddy, who, after a lifetime of growing a thriving business, took up the cause of education options that better help kids to thrive.

Luddy founded Thales Academy, a classical education school, in 2007 in a temporary facility in the back of his corporate office to serve about 30 students; it now spans 13 campuses across three states, with over 6,000 students. Much of that exponential growth has come in recent years as the atmosphere became saturated with calls for educational reforms, and receptive lawmakers enacted new structures to accommodate them.

Like any good businessman will tell you — and Luddy is quite good at business — even a passion project requires a minimum amount of certainty to encourage the pursuit. The impassioned parents, politicians, and policymakers driving for more educational freedom represented more than enough backing to make the investment.

It’s an investment to “teach students knowledge, teach them how to think on their own, and give them the tools they need to reach their greatest potential,” according to the Thales Academy mission statement.

For our family, it is a blessing that will reverberate for a lifetime, or longer. In a sea of political stories and opinions, this week, my most dominant sentiment is the deep appreciation for those focused on delivering good policy and education options for our state.

Thanks to those entrepreneurial champions of education that are creating some great choices for thousands of families across North Carolina. Watching our daughters walk into school Monday, knowing it’s a school and community we CHOSE for our kids, filled us with pride and hope. Even if it is the middle of July.