Katherine Murphy was born and raised in Oxford, Mississippi. During college, Katherine was a classroom assistant at a small, independent school where she began teaching full-time after graduating from The University of Mississippi in 1996. After teaching a few years, she decided to relocate to Asheville. After spending two years working on her graduate degree at Western Carolina University, Katherine found The Learning Community School through an ad in a local newspaper. She fell in love with the school and began as the 3/4 classroom teacher in the fall of 2000. She became the Lead Teacher in the spring of 2001 and the Director in the summer of 2005.

Ms. Katherine’s classroom is a multi-sensory, hands-on educational experience for all students. Math is taught through the use of manipulatives, games, and movement lessons. Katherine helps her students to create a rich, inquiry-based classroom, allowing each student to become fully engaged and enthusiastic about learning.

At home, Katherine enjoys spending time with her family, both in Asheville and in Mississippi.

Holly Baumgartner was born and raised in the farmlands of northeastern Indiana. She spent much time on her grandparents' seventh generation family farm where she developed a deep love for the environment and the outdoors. She left home to attend Indiana University and then headed out to see the country and the Grateful Dead. She returned to her family farmland in 1993 with husband, Shawn, and daughter, Sequoia Rose. While back in Indiana, she apprenticed concurrently with three different midwifery practices. Deciding to put midwifery on hold until her family was older, she and her family moved to Earthaven Ecovillage in 1998 where their son, Eli, was born. There they built an off-grid, passive solar home with sustainably harvested wood (cut and milled by Shawn), rainwater collection for all water needs, and a composting toilet. They moved to the campus of Warren Wilson College, where Shawn is the Forest Manager, in June of 2008, and have enjoyed participating in the many on-campus activities.

Holly's family became a part of the TLC community when her daughter entered 1st grade in the fall of 1999. Now her daughter has graduated TLC and is a sophomore at Owen High School, and her son is entering 7th grade at TLC. Holly became an employee of the school in the fall of 2004, and has been keeping the TLC office running smoothly ever since. She communicates with families each and every day to ensure that everyone has what they need, when they need it!

In her spare time, Holly enjoys contra dancing, Appalachian music and dance, working in her family's garden, making fermented foods, learning to play claw hammer-style banjo, and supporting local farmers and businesses.

Born and raised with her feet in the sand of the southeast barrier islands, our K/1 teacher, Ms. Mitzi, was tempted to remain a beach bum for life. Realizing her love for working with and teaching young children, she pursued a college education with a degree in earlychildhood education as her goal. While attending Berry College and having many opportunities to teach and interact in a nearby
kindergarten classrooms, Mitzi began to envision and dream of teaching the youngest of children in a non-traditional setting. She understood that children are individuals who develop at their own pace and deserve the opportunity to do just that without a lot of pressure. It appeared to Mitzi that a love for learning and a natural curiosity were two key ingredients that seemed to quickly be lost as many children settled into school routines.

After having four children of her own and moving up and down the eastern seaboard, the Prendergast family finally found a comfortable spot right here in Black Mountain, NC. Shortly after this last move, the search began for the perfect school environment for her youngest child. This brought her to The Learning Community School. Mitzi quickly became part of the community and shortly thereafter, started teaching in the K/1 classroom. The years have passed quickly, the kids are in college, out of college, married... and this year Mitzi will begin her 10th year at The Learning Community School. Over these years she has participated in many, many professional development classes and workshops that have encompassed Writer’s and Reader’s Workshop, specific phonics and reading programs, science workshops, and as of this summer she completed her associates training in the multi-sensory based Orton-Gillingham language education program. Mitzi is excited to have so many new (and fun) strategies for teaching the youngest children to read. (The best job in the world!)

Mitzi feels very fortunate to have found the school she had only imagined for herself, and the wonderful community which helps to
balance out her life. She brings some acquired wisdom, plenty of common sense along with her own degree of nonsense, and lots of love for all of the children in her life.

Julie was born in D.C. to a couple of former teachers from Buffalo, NY. She spent her early years playing with her brothers in the woods and creeks of Western Massachusetts. Her family relocated to the suburbs of Charlotte for the rest of her school years. At UNC Chapel Hill, Julie started out studying education and history but caught the academia bug and ended up graduating in 1993 with honors in English and Religious Studies. She met her husband Brian her freshman year. She began teaching in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools after graduating. After trying out law school and taking classes in preparation to be a pediatric nurse practitioner, Julie realized she just wasn’t happy unless she was working with children in a learning environment. She began teaching again at a private school in Chapel Hill and taking education and child development classes. After marrying Brian in 1997, the pair was off to experience city life in New Haven, CT for Brian’s graduate training. While there, Julie taught at a small, progressive independent school in neighboring Branford and yearned for a return to the lush green surroundings and friendliness of the south.The growing family got their wish in September of 1999, when they settled in Asheville and their first daughter Mira was born a month later. Red-headed Ella came onto the scene three years later. Julie relished her years staying home with her girls but stayed plugged in by teaching Sunday school, homeschool co-op classes, and later volunteering and subbing in her daughters’ schools.

In 2007, she went in search of a school for her eldest that was more aligned with her own knowledge and beliefs about education. She found it at TLC! Mira started third grade at TLC that fall, while her little one continued in preschool at Asheville Montessori School, where Julie was teaching. That spring, Julie was hired to take over the 2/3 classroom at TLC the following August. She spent the past summer training in Orton-Gillingham multisensory language education and she has been able to make great use of her skills in the classroom and working on-on-one with students. At TLC, she adores her class and loves sharing her love of history and literature with them. In her limited free time, she loves spending time with her family and friends, cooking, playing board games, spoiling her pets, reading, enjoying music and Tarheel Basketball.

Jesse grew up just down the mountain in the little town of Tryon. Her summers at camp and weekends hiking with her family began her love of the outdoors. In high school, she sought new challenges and attended the NC School of Science and Math in Durham. She went on to UNC Chapel Hill to major in English and Women’s Studies knowing that she wanted to teach English.

She left academia to work for an outdoor adventure company in the DC area. Then she returned to Chapel Hill and finished her degree while working for the university’s outdoor education and leadership programs. She also spent a summer studying Shakespeare at Oxford and traveling around Europe. After graduating, she lead adventure trips out west and explored New Zealand for a few months before landing a job at the Orme School in Arizona. During her two years there, she ran the outdoor program and taught English for the first time.

In 2007, Jesse moved to Asheville to be closer to family, friends, and the Appalachians. She began the MAT program at Western Carolina that summer. But one month before leaving AZ, she had met Trevor. So instead of getting a teaching job in the fall, she turned back west and traveled around the country with him. Their trip ended in Asheville and Trevor loved it. He moved here too and they were married last year.

This will be Jesse’s first year at TLC and she is excited to be teaching at a school that matches her educational philosophy. The past two years she taught Language Arts at a traditional, public middle school. She loved her students and teaching, but craved a nontraditional learning environment that meets kids’ individual needs. Plus, she is thrilled to teach outdoor education again!

Outside of TLC, Jesse is finishing her MAT, dancing, cooking, and gardening. She and Trevor bought a little log cabin in the woods and are doing a sustainable remodel. They have four pygmy goats. Her goals are to be outside, travel, and spend time with people she loves.

Tom Tracy has been hanging around TLC for over ten years. Born and raised in Alabama, this has nothing to do with his education except it makes for great stories about his summers living with his Aunt Snookie in the big ‘ol white house on Forest Hill Road. He pulls these stories out all the time in Writer’s Workshop. He never tires of telling them.

Tom received his Bachelor’s of Elementary Education at the University of Georgia where he focused on Children's Literature. He taught three years of elementary school in the south before moving with his wife, Libba, to Arizona. There he took an assistantship at Arizona State University to study in both the Elementary Education Department as well as in the Children's Theatre Department. He received his Master’s in Early Childhood Education. Once out of school in Arizona , Tom pursued music as a career but ultimately returned to the classroom. (He is now a member of the Dead Poets, which you can check out online at www.thedeadpoets.com.) He taught for six years in an inner city, award-winning school where he first discovered the great minds who were working and developing what we all know now as Writer’s and Reader’s Workshops.

Tom and his wife Libba brought their son, Guy, to TLC in his third grade year, just before the turn of the millennium. Savannah followed soon after. Tom helped bring the Writer’s and Reader’s programs to TLC through staff training and mentoring. Somewhere in this process, he got roped into (whoops), got the opportunity to direct his first musical, The Music Man, and from there continued on to direct both Oliver! and The Wizard of Oz at TLC.

Tom loves to create an environment where young people can express and explore themselves through their own writing and by delving deep into literature. He works hard to create a safe and rigorous community of writers and calls on each writer to write what has meaning to them.

To Tom, family is his main passion. Married for twenty-eight years to his most excellent partner, he is watching his own children blossom as Guy prepares for college and Savannah begins high school.

Forrest grew up in rural Southeastern Kentucky, reading lots of books and exploring the nearby railyards, the landscaped gardens his father designed, and the local National Forests. With these influences, he moved to Asheville to earn his undergraduate degrees in English and Outdoor Education. Soon after this, he completed his MA in English Literature from Boston College. In Boston, he was a Teaching Fellow at the university for freshman writing courses. He was fortunate to be able to design these courses, where he taught that writing is a process and emphasized the students’ relationships to the places in which they live. In 2008, he moved back to the Asheville area because, of all the places he had lived until then, it felt most like home. After answering an ad the newspaper, he began working at TLC School, but had to leave two years later because of an unforeseen family illness. He was excited to return in the fall of 2011, working in the Writers’ and Readers’ Workshops alongside Mr. Tom and Ms. Jesse. When not at school, he fosters several interests that include: a specific type of rock-climbing called bouldering, French turn-of-the-century paintings, contemporary poetry, and sanding the interestingly shaped sticks he finds in the woods.

Carol was born in Louisville, KY and lived there happily amidst a large extended family. Her father’s job necessitated a family move to Northeastern NJ as she was entering sixth grade, so she completed all of her schooling in the New York City metropolitan area, where she earned an Associate in Applied Science in Chemical Technology from Bergen Community College, a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Ramapo College of NJ, a Master of Business Administration in Corporate Finance from Fairleigh Dickinson University, and a Master of Science in Teaching, Secondary Level Mathematics from Iona College.

During this time she also got married and began a family. She has two beautiful daughters, Sarah and Jessica, with her husband Lenny. She worked for almost 15 years at the corporate headquarters for Volvo in various capacities before pursuing a career in education. As the pace of life picked up and work began to overtake quality family time, her family decided to search for a new area to relocate. After much research and many trips, they all decided upon the Asheville area, so they moved here in 2005. Carol’s family, her sister’s family, and her mother all moved to separate households in Leicester and began a new, slower-paced quality life.

Today she enjoys spending time with her family and friends, reading, playing classical piano, doing endless crafting and sewing projects with her kids and their friends, playing games and chauffeuring around her two teenage daughters!

Carol is beginning her third year at TLC this year where she is adding an administrator role to her teaching duties. She loves showing students that math and science can be fun by using various techniques while always setting the goals as high as possible. There's always lots of laughter and learning in the classroom when Carol is in charge!

Clare Duplace was born and raised all over Cincinnati, Ohio. From the very start, she has held a love for learning, nature, books, poetry, art, and music. She attended Montessori schools from elementary through high school, attending the first Montessori public high school in the country. There she was a part of the school’s steel drum band; she has played other instruments including the flute, guitar, and fiddle. Her travels during and outside of school have taken her many places, including Europe, Vermont, Bahamas, Mexico, and the majority of the states. She loves to go to new places and meet new people. She enjoys writing and typing on her typewriter, making giant meals for people, listening to records, reading, swimming, being in the woods, beekeeping, making forts, and on and on.

After graduating from Warren Wilson with a B.A. and Liscensure in Elementary Education, she went on a three month romp through Europe, and then followed an old love for the land and moved to Vermont. While living there, she taught at a Waldorf School, was a children's librarian, and created yet another close-knit community for herself.

After a couple years there, she missed the Blue Ridge mountains so much that she decided to head back to this area. She attended an herbalist school while holding three jobs. After her school experience was complete, she realized that she was missing one of the essential aspects in her life: children. Thanks to a tip from a friend, she found out about an opening at The Learning Community School and she quickly came in for an interview. The minute she walked in the front door, she knew that this was a place she wanted to be. Since that moment, it has been nothing short of incredible and the most natural next step in her journey. Her dream is to have an Earth-based community school, be a healer, have babies, and live out her days on a farm by the sea.

Theresa Cote has been a member of the TLC community since 2000 when her son, Max, entered Kindergarten. She volunteered with and then headed up the art program for many years before becoming a school employee. She also started TLC’s after-school art club. Last year, she began integrating art with the rest of the curriculum, which has been a major success. She continues to look for ways to add more art opportunities into TLC’s daily routine. Additionally, Ms. Theresa has designed, produced, and coordinated the costumes for the last six all-school musicals. You can check out some of her amazing handiwork on the “school musical” link.

In her spare time, Theresa enjoys working own art projects, with a current focus on surface design. She lives in Swannanoa with her kitten, Marlow, her chinchilla, Bun Bun, and her son, Max.

David moved to Asheville from Winston-Salem in order to be closer to the mountains. He graduated from UNCA with a degree in psychology and an interest in teaching. Over the years David has worked as an office assistant, a raft guide, a special needs counselor, a mentor, a carpenter, and a musician. He also enjoys backpacking, cycling, kayaking, gardening, tai chi, and spending time with his wife Valerie and son Cedar. David appreciates having the opportunity to share his skills and interests, and is excited about being part of such a great community.

David is the director of True Nature Camp, a nature-based program focusing on primitive skills and wilderness survival. David has worked at TLC on a full-time and part-time basis in the past, and now works as a consultant to our OE team. He often accompanies classes on their overnight camping experiences, leading hands-on primitive skills lessons.

Lois Anixter grew up in Washington, DC, where she was an emergency room technician for many years. Her family moved to Asheville, where she has raised her three daughters, the youngest of whom graduated from TLC in May of 2011.

Lois' classroom is filled with wonder, as her K-4th grade students are encouraged to think like scientists by asking all sorts of questions about their units of study. Lois also leads the K/1 students in art and drawing lessons. What else does she do around the school? Well, she's a perpetual motion machine... she implemented and maintains our Monarch waystation, and maintains the school's gardens, among 1,000 other things she takes care of each and every day!

Elizabeth grew up catching frogs and snakes in her backyard in rural Maryland. She had a passion for being outside and knew she wanted to teach so she headed West to attend Northland College on the shores of Lake Superior and earn BS degrees in Environmental Studies, Outdoor Education, and Environmental Education. During summers and the school year, Elizabeth worked and lived at times in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, where she learned to speak Spanish.

Shortly after finishing her undergraduate program, Elizabeth began working with the University of Wisconsin-Extension as an Environmental Education Specialist. She designed and delivered curriculum for learners ages pre-K thru adult ages, and founded and directed a program for high school students concerning environmental leadership and social justice. During this time she also had her son Kai, who is now 8 years old.

Elizabeth moved to North Carolina in 2008 in time for her son to start Kindergarten, and to be closer to her only sister, who is also a teacher. She taught Spanish at a private school and then took the opportunity to get her teaching certification in Middle Grades Science after that school closed in 2010. Elizabeth is currently finishing her Masters of Education at Western Carolina University.

Elizabeth brings this diverse background to TLC and enjoys her time with each age group of students! She teaches using a hands-on approach when leading K-8 Spanish lessons, which is a great fit with TLC’s educational philosophy!

When Elizabeth is not at school, you can usually find her outside with her son Kai. They love to bike, climb, swim, and just play!

Whitney was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She grew up loving the outdoors which took her to Colorado for college. It was in Colorado where she discovered her passion to work with children. She received her Bachelors of Science degree in Psychology from Colorado State University in 2001. While attending Colorado State, Whitney volunteered at a local elementary school working one on one with a student in an inclusive setting. This experience sparked her desire for a career in education. Though she loved Colorado dearly, she missed her family back south. Her goal was to find a place still in the mountains but closer to family. And that's how she landed in Asheville. Shortly after moving to Asheville, Whitney started school again at Western Carolina University. In 2004 she received her Masters of Arts in Teaching with a Special Education concentration. While in graduate school, Whitney gained experience working in a variety of educational settings including a public elementary school and a school for at risk youth. Just one month after finishing classes at WCU, her son Jackson was born. Family was number one and she decided to put her career on hold to stay home and raise her children.

Whitney has been a part of the TLC community since 2009 as a parent, volunteer K/1 assistant, and board member. In 2011, Whitney joined the TLC staff and is thrilled to help fulfill the mission of this amazing school!

Whitney lives in Asheville with her husband Doug and two sons, Jackson and Owen. She loves spending time with her family. Together they enjoy music, hiking, camping, and skiing.

Allyson MacCauley began her musical training at the age of five in the church choir and playing the piano competitively for the National Piano Guild competitions. She sang in the praise and worship band in high school as well as leading the music team for the diocese of North Carolina’s Happening retreats. Her love of musical theatre began in high school. She has played several roles including Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls and Jenny in Quilters, and was featured in Oklahoma!, Children of Eden, and Footloose. Allyson earned two degrees at East Carolina in History Education and Political Science, and graduated from Mars Hill College with a BA in Music in 2008. She currently works with several local music and performance groups. She has been seen on the stage with the Asheville Lyric Opera, the Summer Festival Chorus, the Echo Early Music Festival, the Buddy K Band, and recently cut an album with the Acoustic Swing Band. She teaches both adults and children in her private voice and piano studio at Asheville Community Theatre’s Tanglewood Summer camp. She is a teaching artist at North Carolina Stage Company, and is co-founder of AllyMac Productions. In her spare time she loves to see movies, spend time with her husband, garden, and hike in the beautiful mountains around Asheville.

Hui Te “Brian” Lee was born in Taipei, Taiwan. He moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina in 1989, when the United State Naval Hospital sponsored his father’s immigration. Mr. Lee served as a sergeant in the Taiwanese Army and worked as a sales representative for Giant Company (Komat’su agent) in Taipei. He received an Electronic Associate degree from St. John and St. Mary Junior College in Taipei, and an Associate in Arts-College Transfer degree from Blue Ridge Community College in Hendersonville, North Carolina. At the University of North Carolina at Asheville, he obtained a computer science degree with a concentration in computer systems and a minor in mathematics.

His love for tutoring math has driven him to Blue Ridge Community College, Christ School ’s evening tutoring program, and the AVID program at Asheville Middle School. At UNCA, he worked in the math lab and as a computer lab assistant manager.

Mr. Lee likes sharing his oriental background with his friends and students in western North Carolina, and he used his Taiwanese and Mandarin skills as an interpreter for Buncombe County Department of Social Services and Volvo. Mr Lee joined TLC in the fall of 2007.

In his spare time, Mr. Lee likes solving math, physics, language, and computer problems, reading, listening to soft music, watching baseball, basketball, and volleyball, traveling, photography, cooking, and watching movies. He attends all community and social functions at the school, and enjoys volunteering any time the chance arises.