Biographies
Jean Kulczyk, M.Ed.
Jean Kulczyk, M.Ed., is a certified teacher in the areas of learning disabilities, emotional disorders, typical children K-8 and high school English, with additional certifications in Reading and Behavior Modification. For seven years, she authored and published At Our Own Pace, a newsletter for homeschooling special needs families. She has over thirty years experience as a homeschooling special needs advocate and consultant, and has worked as an advocate in the public schools for five years. Jean also volunteers as a Court Appointed Special Advocate, and has homeschooled her three daughters.
Bonnie Verhulst
Bonnie Verhulst is a certified elementary teacher who left the classroom to homeschool her two children twenty-five years ago (in 1983). For the last four years, she has been an adjunct math instructor for the local community college. Also over the last four years, she has taken around twenty-five hours of graduate level coursework thereby adding middle school endorsements in both math and social studies to her teaching certificate. Bonnie has given numerous talks to public and private school educators helping them to understand homeschooling. Additionally, Bonnie is a certified natural health professional with interests in natural therapies. Other interests include “later literacy,” allergies resulting in behaviors, and dysgraphia/dyslexia.
Dorothy Werner
Dorothy Werner started homeschooling her children in 1978 after doing Masters work in education at Northwestern and helping to run the Sunflower School. Four of her five sons graduated through Clonlara School. She helped found HOUSE (Home Oriented Unique Schooling Experience), a statewide network of homeschooling support groups in Illinois. She began working with Clonlara families in 1979 and represents Clonlara on the Ad Hoc Committee for Illinois Home Education Legal and Legislative Matters. She has helped many families translate what they do at home into academic language. She is now available for private consults about transcripts, unschooling, and other aspects of homeschooling.
Jean H. Vondriska, M.Ed.
Jean H. Vondriska, M.Ed., worked as a special education teacher, school director and university instructor before assisting her two children in unschooling from kindergarten through high school. Jean has a special interest in children who learn to read “later”; she has researched and given workshops on later literacy. In addition to her work with Dynamic Learning 411, she maintains a private practice as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.
Kathy Wentz
Kathy Wentz is a certified teacher who left the classroom to raise and homeschool her own family 18 years ago. For the last decade she has been speaking on a wide variety of topics, and running a number of homeschool websites and email lists. She spearheaded the creation of the first-ever Homeschool Resource Center in a public library. In addition to her current ongoing work at the Johnsburg, Illinois, Public Library she is a much sought-after educational consultant, private tutor, and homeschool math and science teacher.