Joanne MacDonald, Home Education Manager, decided in elementary school that she wanted to be a teacher and has been working with children and students of all ages ever since. She attended the University of Alberta for her Bachelor of Education in Elementary, Special Education. After graduation she lived in the Netherlands for a year. She then worked in several early childhood settings, primarily with special needs preschoolers. Joanne later spent several years as a teacher and director at Sylvan Learning Centre, where she learned of the tremendous impact that an individualized learning program can have for students.

Joanne has three children who have always been home educated. One of her favourite parts of home education is the flexibility to adapt to each student’s interests and needs. During the first 10 years of home educating her own children, Joanne also ran a family dayhome with children from ages 6 weeks to 12 years, so she understands what it is like to try to manage a home full of children of different ages, stages, and personalities. In 2020, Joanne closed her dayhome and began working as a Home Education Manager with ursa. Joanne has always enjoyed learning about home education philosophies, exploring new educational resources and ideas, and sharing those ideas with other home educators, making the position of Home Education Manager basically her dream job. She loves helping other home educating families and watching them learn and grow together. Other than being with her family, one of Joanne’s main interests is Family History. She is a volunteer for an organization that digitizes historical documents such as birth, marriage, death, or census records, so that they can be searched by individuals who are interested in their genealogy. Joanne also enjoys teaching others how to search the records to construct their family tree. Joanne loves music and plays the flute and piano. She also is striving diligently to keep up with an ever increasing list of books that she wants to read, although with three children constantly recommending new books, it is a losing battle.