Parent Advisory Council
The Parent Advisory Council (PAC) is a group of home schooling parents who helps advise WISDOM on ways to best serve the home schooling community. PAC members must be WISDOM parents who profess the Apostles’ Creed. They meet twice a year for an in-camera meeting of the PAC followed by an assembly with facilitators, office staff and administrators.
Members of the PAC:
- provide prayer and moral support to WISDOM and the governing school authority;
- are ambassadors for WISDOM by their lifestyle;
- are a resource for the families of WISDOM (this role is not administrative but supportive);
- welcome families new to WISDOM;
- make themselves available for contact by our WISDOM families (see the "Read More" section of each bio for contact information);
- advocate to WISDOM on behalf of WISDOM parents;
- assist facilitators with local WISDOM events;
- may gather or write articles for the WISDOM website or magazine;
- are politically informed, engaged and aware;
- update WISDOM families about current issues that impact home schooling (watch for inserts in the WISDOM magazine).
Our homeschooling adventure began 11 years ago when our oldest was in kindergarten. Since then, we have added four more children to the journey of learning, loving, and growing in faith together. WISDOM has been our choice from the beginning, and we have always so appreciated the freedom and support we’ve received as primary educators of our children.
We do life together as a family on a hobby farm south of Calgary, which offers many learning opportunities and daily drama. Book lessons may be interrupted by the sudden realization that the goats have gotten out – again – or the need to simply stop and laugh in amusement at the goose chasing the dog. We cherish the memories and time we have with our children, and can hardly believe how quickly the years fly by!
Our journey into home schooling our five children began over 19 years ago. We are nearing the end of that journey with only one child (now age 16) working toward completing high school studies. We have found this to be the most rewarding journey we have ever embarked on. Walking with, and seeing the development of each of our children – in their character, their faith, their education, and their life pursuits, has been a great joy. We have met the challenges that are unique to each child's development and we have worked past those hurdles – some being more challenging than others.
We first considered homeschooling our children when our oldest child was just a toddler. By the time kindergarten (and the yellow school bus) approached, we had surrendered to God’s leading by choosing to educate our children at home instead of in a school setting.
This journey that began with some foreboding soon evolved into a new lifestyle filled with fun, frustration, adventure…and a whole lot of fantastic books! Several bookshelves later, we find ourselves at the end of our 26-year-long homeschooling experience with our five children.
Hello! We’re Michael and Victoria Hutchinson. We are a homeschool family and are new this year to serving on the Parent Advisory Council. We will be celebrating our 20th anniversary this coming January 2025 and feel so grateful for the adventure we’ve had together so far, especially the experience of home educating our four children for the past 11 years, who range in age from 7 to 16.
We are Menno and Margaret Knelsen, and we're from La Crete, way up in northern Alberta. We have been a homeschooling family since 2001, and registered with WISDOM since 2008. It has been a challenging journey for us, but also incredibly rewarding. When we first started out, our two oldest girls came out of public school after completing grades three and one. We appreciated the school where they were attending at the time, and clearly communicated that our reason for pulling them out was to bring them home. We had discussed the possibility for a couple of years before, and the time felt right.
Time marches on and there have been many changes to the Kok family since our last bio on the WISDOM website. We have been married for almost 32 years. We still have 4 children but now they are all adults, ranging in age from 29 (our son) and down to 19 (3 daughters). The older 2 are living on their own in St. Albert and Edmonton. We still have 2 girls at home to keep us company, when they are around, plus a dog and 2 cats. We are still living in St. Albert.
Diane and Joe met in high school and were married in 1981 in Calgary. Before their children were born, Diane taught English and French in senior and junior high schools. Joe was formerly a Financial Analyst, then made a career change and became a high school Physics and Chemistry teacher. They were blessed to be offered a position with WISDOM in the fall of 1997, facilitating for 25 years before retiring and joining the Parent Advisory Council. Diane and Joe have also volunteered together in the marriage preparation ministry and have enjoyed years of scripture studies with their small church community. Living south of Calgary on a lovely acreage, Joe and Diane run a greenhouse in the spring.
Although both of us were homeschooled until high school (one attending a small private Christian high school and the other a public high school with the population of a small town), sometime in our marriage we had wanted our children to attend private Christian school. However, our oldest had not even finished Grade 1 during the pandemic in 2021 before it was evident that we would be switching to homeschooling.
Our journey with homeschooling began during the pandemic. Kris was reluctant at first but only a few months in, we were all hooked! We have three children, two in high-school and our son is just at the beginning of his schooling. Now we are all engaged and very well connected with homeschooling in our small town community of Carstairs. Kris works away so when he's home this gives us more family time together. He enjoys all the discussions regarding what we are learning and joining us when he can. Amanda's outgoing personality has been an asset in getting people involved in the different homeschool activities. These activities include: sewing, kindergarten groups, art classes, fun get togethers, teen activities, and more. She also is on the Soccer Association Board and the Friends of the Carstairs Library board, and has organized a local homeschool conference this past spring, that she hopes will continue each year.
Our relationship started in the Rockies in western Alberta and that place seems to keep drawing us back. It feels like it has become considerably more work for us to get out there in the last few years, but we can’t seem to figure out why. (Our family increasing in size from 2 to 7 might have something to do with it!) We also love to spend time with our extended family, play music, sing, and watch our young children grow and experience life.