Emily Lorelli

As a former public school teacher, I never thought I’d be homeschooling. But when Anthony (my husband of 25 years) and I were contemplating how to address the problems we saw with our oldest daughter’s experience in public school, God revealed the possibility of homeschooling through the example of several respected families from our church, St. Katherine Orthodox Christian Church in Kirkland. The choice to homeschool, which seems so obvious from our present position, required a tremendous leap of faith and has borne good fruit thus far – glory be to God! That “oldest daughter” has just graduated from OTIS College of Art and Design and our son is entering his last year at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where he is studying biomedical engineering. Our two youngest daughters are currently high school students at Connections and the older of the two will be graduating this year. 

Homeschooling, while challenging in many ways, has been a natural development for a former high school English teacher who has been “teaching” ever since she was eight and “playing school.” Fortunately for my students and my children, my skills have improved since that time. I graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a BA in literature in 1997 and a MA in education in 1999. I taught ninth and tenth-grade English at a public high school in Northern California for five years until the birth of my son called me home to spend my energies there. However much I loved being at home full-time, I missed the particular energies and inspiration of interacting with students in the classroom. I have been blessed to teach at Connections for the last twelve years and am excited to have the opportunity to teach again this coming year.

Top