AKRON, Ohio -- As Ohio school districts continue to struggle to find funding, more and more parents are keeping their kids at home to be homeschooled, reported NewsChannel5's Jonathan Costen.

In fact, a national government survey claims there's a 29 percent increase in homeschooling.

An Akron mom says she decided to home school her children for several different reasons.

Debbie Curtis and her husband have four children. For many parents, sending the kids off to school gives mom and dad a break, but Curtis wants to keep her children close.

"I home school Allie, who's 6, I home school Mattie, who's 5, she does pre-school ... Then Zoie; she's just doing colors and shapes and she's 3," said Curtis.

The Curtis family decided to homeschool for three main reasons. First, so they can keep a close eye on the children and control their environment.

"In our district, the public schools haven't ranked that high and we knew that and we thought, let's preserve their innocence a little bit longer," said Curtis.

A possible option would have been private school but for financial reasons, they decided against it.

"For us, it basically came down to a financial decision," said Curtis. "There's a lot of great schools, a lot of great opportunities out there, but with four kids and a bigger house you have to make a decision: Do I want to live in a smaller house or do I want to send them to private school?"

Another reason the Curtis house is also a school is the freedom of family time.

"We can do what it takes five hours to do at a public school in two hours at home, and we've got a lot more free time," said Curtis.

Curtis says her family has so much flexibility with their schedule that they can take off during the holidays to see relatives while other children are in school.

But advocates of public education say children have to interact with the rest of the world, so in a school system students get the three R's along with socialization skills.