Campaign Team Bios

Claren Walker - Co-Campain Manager

Claren has attended Village Home since it was founded by her mother, Lori Walker in 2002. She is passionate about her academic education as well as her younger sister's. Claren is dedicated to her training in dance and teaches four beginning ballet classes per week. Being on a DI team has given her experience in creative problem solving and team work and she has been involved in cooperative service projects for Village Home.

Ursula Dennison - Co-Campain Manager

Ursula has been going to Village Home since she was eight years old.  Her father joined the board a few years later, and she became more and more interested in the inner workings of Village Home.  A lifelong homeschooler, Ursula looks forward to continuing her education at Village Home.

Travis Straus - Secretary

Travis has been going to Village Home for 4 years. He also has a younger brother who is 12 and sister who is 8, both have been going for almost as long a he has. Having younger siblings in Village Home has helped him understand some of the thing that make it uncomfortable for younger students. He plans to use this knowledge to help the younger students feel more comfortable.

Charlotte Smythe -Vice President

My name is Charlotte Smythe and I have been attending Village Home for 6 years. I have been home schooled my entire life and am always looking for a new challenge I have participated in many Village Home teams such as Lego Robotics, Destination Imagination, First Tech Challenge, Toy Challenge, and Mock Trial. I have always loved kids and have a younger 13 year old brother who also attends Village Home.

Grace Lafferty-Presidential Candidate

I’ve attended Village Home for a year and a half now, and have felt the empowering acceptance from the start. I knew right away that I wanted to be more involved in the community, and being president is the perfect opportunity for this.  I have been extremely involved in all my activities, including choir, swim team,  family, and my neighborhood community.  I have recently completed a full life guard training course and been hired as a life guard, which demonstrates my commitment to challenging myself and working hard. I have a love for children and a younger sister that attends Village Home. One of my main reasons for running for president is to bring different age groups together and really express how Village Home creates a diverse and interactive learning environment for all ages. I am on the Model United Nations team and I fight hard to represent my country's position, and I will strive to maintain Village Home's position as well. I am verbal, energetic, fun, and make a point to talk to everyone no matter what age. My passion is to make connections with people, and make sure every voice in this vibrant community is heard. A people person, for a people place. 

Platform 2012

Grace's Platform 2012

Village Home has been growing stronger for almost 10 years, and now has two locations providing brighter social and learning opportunities. We continue to give learners of all ages an inspiring place to learn, and we are still growing with more and more students each year. 

We want to continue to empower learners of all ages, and create even more opportunities for older and younger generations of Village to connect and learn from each other. Peer to peer education is valuable, but we also want to give younger learners a chance to learn from the older generation. Toward this end, we plan to implement Next Generation Tutoring, a service provided by the teens of Village Home to educate younger learners on a topic they both enjoy.  This will create opportunities for different ages to interact, while providing teaching experience for the the elder learners.  We believe that through this program we will better connect our learners across the ages.

Village Home currently provides "cubbies" for learners, which are stationed along one side of the downstairs hallway.  Large crowds tend to form around these cubbies as learners collect their supplies for their next class, and this can make it challenging for younger learners and even parents and teachers to get through the hall.  To fix this problem, we plan to relocate some of the cubbies to the student lounge upstairs, making more room in the hallway while simultaneously encouraging teens to meet in the lounge and not congest the halls.

Although Village Home is a well-loved and inspiring place, funds are always needed to keep up our teacher and staff salaries and still continue to keep tuition costs low. We believe that we could achieve this be reaching out beyond our community to find larger financial support. We will strive to bring awareness to the nation about our powerful learning community, and spread the word about a different choice for education. 

We believe that our learners have the power to be responsible, and that they are the drivers of their education. Village Home has truly put the students in the driver's seat of their own education, and now we want to take that one step further by giving students the option to take on more responsibility in the community and voice their concerns and opinions.  We believe this will bring the community closer together and help make it an even brighter place for everyone.

Platform 2012

We are continuing to work on our platform and will be finished by the end of the day! Go Grace!!!!!!!!