Olivia Votaw

In Pursuit of Beauty: An education that awakens love for truth, orders the imagination, and strengthens the will toward the good.

Olivia Votaw has been involved in public, private, and homeschool education for over 20 years. She loves learning just about anything, but is currently most excited about, America's founding, Georgics, poetry, and sourdough. Olivia is one of the founders of Rise Up Academy in Lehi, Utah and ALTUS Family Liber Academy in Tucson, Arizona. Camping on the beach, reading, laughing, cooking, and road trips are some of her favorite things. Olivia lives in Southern Arizona with her Votawesome husband, three spunky kids, Mexican mother, and two fluffy dogs. 

Lisa Weiner, MSN

Keynote: Why Being Attached to Our Kids Isn’t Enough - They Need to Be Attached to Us, too! The fact that we love our kids is so important, but it is not what gives us our ability to lead, raise, teach or guide our children. What grants us this most important power and influence is when our kids love us. When they like us, love us, look to us for guidance and rest in our care, that’s when we are granted to power to parent them. In this keynote, Lisa will explore how attachment is meant to unfold and some of the more “hidden” dynamics affecting attachment, such as the alpha and dependent roles and defendedness and vulnerability.

Workshop: Let’s Explore Alpha Kids. Many children and teens these days are attached to their parents in the alpha position. These kids can appear bossy, demanding and alarmed and they are generally hard to parent. In this workshop, we’ll explore the various dynamics that can influence kids to attach in this way including sensitivity, adoption and parenting styles and techniques.

Lisa Weiner, MSN, is a nurse practitioner, parent coach, Internal Family Systems Practitioner and Faculty member at the Neufeld Institute. She loves supporting parents through classes, workshops and coaching sessions. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two sons.

Erin Cox

Deciding to homeschool can be a truly exciting moment! Oftentimes, our original motivations and the invigoration of a "new thing" can help us start out with so much zeal that we never imagine that we won't LOVE doing this. But hard days come, and sometimes they come by the dozens. When that happens, how do we keep moving forward toward the vision that God gave us? In this interactive workshop, homeschool veteran Erin Cox will walk you through the process of casting vision for your unique family so that when you're ready to throw in the towel, you'll be equipped to stay the course!

Erin is a veteran homeschooling mama to two graduates and two little ones. She runs The Gentle + Classical Press and Good Oaks Farm from her family home in central Alabama alongside her amazing husband Danny. Erin's favorite things include dating her husband, learning about learning, embroidery, gluten free breadmaking, and all the books.

Stacy J. Stewart

In this interactive hands-on workshop, you will be the student as Stacy takes you through a structured lesson based on the research-supported science of reading. Handouts will be provided to help you take what you learn here to what you can do with your student at home. Although this workshop is geared toward early readers, parents of struggling older readers can benefit from learning the instructional strategies that are shared.

Stacy J. Stewart is a Literacy and Reading Specialist, and a Board-Certified Educational Therapist with over 25 years of experience. In private practice her focus has been on psycholinguistic assessment and interventions with struggling readers. She has also worked with educational publishers as a consultant and served in private and public schools as a Literacy Coach and literacy program coordinator.

Jami Hepworth

Poetry is the Hook for engaging one-room school house type learning. Learn to use poetry and the arts to access multiple subjects for multiple ages in a pleasant atmosphere of individual pursuit and achievement through gentle invitations. Jami’s interactive workshop will allow you to experience hunting for good poems, doing copy work, embellishing a handwritten quote, and active listening to classical music.

Jami is a single mom who has homeschooled her kids from the beginning. She and her five kids love to hike and try new recipes. Jami is a fearless seeker of truth who shares her insights and memes on social media with an audience of thousands. In her work as a life coach, she has learned to listen deeply and find the underlying needs, hurts, and concerns that people harbor as she helps them resolve the pain and seek healing. She has created numerous courses for homeschoolers

Alicia Chancellor Hansen, MS

Alicia has been involved in the Northern Nevada homeschooling community for 12 years. She has served on the Board of Northern Nevada Home Schools (NNHS) since 2019 and is currently Chair. She has organized the NNHS Science and Invention Fair since 2018 and the Spelling Bee since 2023.

Alicia and her husband Michael currently reside in Carson City and homeschool their four children, ages 14, 12, 9, and 7. She has been both a primary homeschooling parent and homeschooled while working full-time as a data analyst and project manager. She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Mathematics with an Emphasis in Statistics from the University of Nevada, Reno.

People often worry about potential negative impacts from homeschooling. Questions regularly come up about topics such as socialization, making friends, curriculum, costs, teaching (especially math!), adult work schedules, issuing diplomas, and getting into college. We will consider these concerns and ways to address them so our kids can thrive.