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).

We feel especially blessed to have WISDOM as our homeschool administration!  The support and encouragement we receive is priceless.  We are still teaching four of our children at home, and next year one less. For many years we've had five students, and it seems the load is lifting somewhat, except now we're involved in our grandchildren's lives. We hope to play a supporting role as our adult kids have already begun to homeschool their children. What a beautiful legacy to pass on to the next generations!

We live on a farm near Fairview and we have 5 children, ages 14 and under:  Joel, Rachel, Nicole, Monica and Luke.

We appreciate WISDOM’s position on traditional home schooling, their emphasis on character development and the social and academic activities that they make available to the WISDOM Families.

We have been homeschooling with Wisdom since the beginning of our journey, 17 years ago.  I have only grown in my appreciation for Wisdom and the solid people connected to Wisdom, from the facilitators to the staff to the PAC.  Wisdom’s dedication to and philosophy of traditional homeschooling have been a vital source of inspiration, support and information.We actually started out with our oldest two in a Christian school and after asking God “how can we build relationship with our kids now and for the future?” His answer came back, “time.” And I thought, “Where do I get that time?  There isn’t much time for getting to their hearts!” And God gently whispered "home school" and we haven't looked back.  We've stumbled, cried, laughed and sighed but not looked back.  I was one of those moms who said, "I could never home school."  I have learned since that I was right, I can't...on my own, but God has been more than sufficient to lead and empower and give His amazing grace on our journey. And let me trip when I stubbornly go my own way.

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 trepidation soon evolved into a new lifestyle filled with fun, frustration, adventure…and a whole lot of fantastic books! Several bookshelves later, we find ourselves near the end of our homeschooling experience with our five children, with 25 years behind us and only 1 short year ahead.

We have been married for almost 25 years and the Lord has blessed us with our family. We live in St. Albert with our 4 children.  They are a son (20) and 3 daughters 17, 14, and 11. We have been home schooling for about 12 years and all those years were with WISDOM.  One reason we chose to home school was to become closer as a family. We enjoy camping, especially in B.C.  We are active in our church and also our home school support group.  We are thankful to have WISDOM along with us on this journey.

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 school. 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 Support 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.

The Harrison family is just a typical, quiet, reserved Alberta family.

Except they aren’t all that typical. Being blessed on a massive scale with 8 kids (3 girls and a handful of boys) is a bit atypical - maybe not among homeschoolers, but it is out of the ordinary. Also, they aren’t all that quiet - there are 10 of them after all. Okay, so they’re an atypical, loud, reserved Alberta family.

 
 
 
 
Part of The Gilbertine Institute