The Schole Muses

The Scholé Muses

HomeSchool Leaders

 (From left to right, top row: Jennifer Dow, Brooke Diener, Carolyn Baddorf, Kathy Weitz, Colleen Leonard, Christine Parker. These six women are all leaders of homeschooling co-ops and many are part of the ScholĂ© Communities network. Across four courses and several panel discussions, these veteran homeschool leaders present practical training on how to bring a restful, classical education to students in a homeschool setting. 
 
Jennifer Dow is a classical teacher, writer, and speaker. She completed the CiRCE Apprenticeship program as a CiRCE–certified classical teacher and has taught humanities, logic, rhetoric, and the fine arts since 2009. Jennifer researches, writes, and speaks about classical teaching; serves as the founder and director of learning and development at Paideia Fellowship in Charlotte, North Carolina; teaches humanities locally and online; and is the cohost of The Classical Homeschool Podcast. She also works with Classical Academic Press on the ScholĂ© Groups team. Jennifer’s published works can be seen around the web at Paideia Fellowship, the CiRCE Institute, ScholĂ© Groups, and Afterthoughts. She has been featured on the Your Morning Basket podcast with Pam Barnhill and has spoken to moms and educators around the country on how to teach classically and create thriving classical communities. She is currently working on her first book, a memoir chronicling her journey of becoming a classical teacher.

Brooke Diener
 has been classically homeschooling her own children and teaching in co-ops for over a decade, and has served other homeschooling families through her writing and speaking at conferences. She holds a BA in Christian education and psychology from Wheaton College and a Montessori teaching certification from the United Montessori Association. She and her husband—headmaster, consultant, and author Dr. David Diener—live in Hillsdale, Michigan, with their 4 energetic and eclectic children and are committed to furthering the mission and impact of classical Christian education through their lives and work. In her leisure time, Brooke loves to read the classics and discuss them with friends, and to take long hikes in the woods with her family.

Carolyn Baddorf 
helped form the ScholĂ© Homeschool Center of Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. This group is now in its fifth year and serves approximately 75 children ages pre-K to 12th grade. Carolyn continues to serve the co-op through teaching and leadership. She has 3 children and has been homeschooling for 9 years. She is an adjunct professor of nursing for a local community college, teaching psychiatric nursing part-time. She revels in beautiful ideas and making connections as she learns the Great Tradition alongside her students.

Kathy Weitz
 educated her 6 children at home and also pursued a classical education for herself. Though her youngest child graduated in 2018, she is continuing to pursue her own “life well-read” as she works toward a master’s degree in Christian and classical studies. In addition to her own children, she has taught a number of other students, both online and in the classroom. Kathy continues to be involved in her local home education community as the director of curriculum at Providence Prep, a ScholĂ© community in Purcellville, Virginia. In addition, she is spearheading an effort to open a collegiate-model classical high school in her local community. Kathy blogs about Morning Time, commonplace books, self-education, scholĂ©, and more at The Reading Mother.

Colleen Leonard 
is the director of Sola Gratia Classical Academy in Raleigh, North Carolina, which began as a ScholĂ© pilot group in 2015, following 3 years of teaching a group out of her basement classroom. She has been homeschooling for 16 years and has 4 children ranging in age from 4 to 19. She loves bringing creative, embodied learning to students and helping others create a more restful experience in their pursuit of a classical education. Her passion is to educate students’ heads and hearts for Christ.
 
Christine Parker is a director of Veritas Academy, a ScholĂ© group in Chicago. Veritas Academy began as a classical Christian co-op in 2014, serving about 20 children, and God has since grown the co-op to serve more than 75 children, ages pre-K through 9th grade. Christine serves as the co-op’s director of logic and rhetoric (junior and senior high) and as its director of curriculum. She has been homeschooling for just over 5 years and has 5 children—2 biological and 3 adopted—ages 3 to 13. Outside of homeschooling, her passion is meeting the physical, educational, and spiritual needs of at-risk children in Chicago and abroad. She is privileged to be able to use her juris doctor and master of business to further these causes through service on the boards of directors of 2 not-for-profit organizations in Chicago and as a local church contact for Safe Families.