Deer Park Home Link: After adjusting to his dyslexia, Justin Schluter finds success in learning

Increasingly, home- schooling families have been drawn to Parent Partnership Programs where parents, teachers and educational specialists work together on behalf of students.

Deer Park Home Link is one local example of that, providing academic and supplemental classes for 450 students on two campuses, in Clayton and Deer Park.

And for an example of a student who has thrived on the opportunities made available to him by programs like Home Link, look no further than Justin Schluter, who through his own diligence and commitment has not only graduated from high school, but at the same time prepared himself for a career that will provide him both personal and material rewards.

School didn’t start out that way for Schluter, though.

“I’ve been in Home Link since third grade,” he said. “It was hard going to school before that because of my dyslexia. It was like reading backwards, and I went through my classes not learning. It took classes and tutoring to help me learn in a fun way instead of just getting a book.”

The key to Schluter’s success during high school, though, has been his involvement in the Running Start program through the Community Colleges of Spokane, where students receive both high school and college credit.

As a junior, he earned a certificate in welding, and during his senior year, he did the same in industrial manufacturing with a 4.0 GPA. He began his Running Start program at the Spokane Community College campus, but after a quarter there he transferred the Colville campus, where his father is an industrial and manufacturing technology instructor.

That has been no easy task. The drive from Deer Park to Colville is about an hour each way, and all the while Schluter also was required to complete his high school graduation requirements, through Home Link and more traditional home-schooling.

And consider this: the young man who had struggled through school with a severe language-based learning disability was now doing college work successfully.

“It has taken lots of hard work,” Schulter said. “I have done extra reading courses with my Home Link consultant Richelle Harget, and I’ve actually improved doing college work, teaching myself to read and write better. With Richelle, I’ve had to pass a weekly pamphlet quiz in order to move on.”

His involvement in Running Start has made a huge difference not only in Schluter’s attitude toward school, but also about himself.

“If I hadn’t done Running Start,” he said, “I probably would have kept struggling through school, behind in credits and maybe not even graduating. But as soon as I heard about the welding program, I was like, ‘Sign me up,’ and now I’m excited about school.

“Being in college classes has helped me mature, and my self-confidence has improved from being around some of the older guys in the program. In the last couple years, for the first time in my life I’ve been excited about myself. I saw a whole new future!”

He’s looking forward this fall to no more high-school homework, and he’ll continue at CCS in the fluid power program, refining his skills in pneumatics, hydraulics, and hopefully robotics. He is also considering enlisting in the military at some point.

Eventually, he hopes for a career in the SpaceX program, which designs, manufactures, and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. But that’s down the road.

In the meantime, he considers how he got to where he is now, from where he began.

“My goal has been to go beyond what I’ve been asked to do. There’s never been an easy way for me, so I’ve had to work harder than others. To succeed, giving 100% hasn’t been enough. I’ve needed to give 110%.”