Rachel Fields is a home schooling mom of four children, ranging in age from seventeen to two years. She believes celebrating and encouraging the unique child lends way to a greater love of learning, as well as an optimum sense of purpose and understanding of family and self.  Rachel embraces the idea of organizing the home experience to best suit distinctive learning styles in order to further entice passion-driven exploration and discovery. When asked how their family best defines their home schooling experience, the answer remains: "We're unschoolishly eclectic with classic tendencies!" 

Tami Fox is a homeschool mom of six children who range in age from 16 years to 5 months. She has homesschooled since 2000. She uses an eclectic approach to homeschooling. Tami also owns and operates Discount Home School Supplies from her home. She has also written her first ebook, Overcoming Obstacles While Homeschooling. You can contact Tami through her email address at 6blessings@gmail.com or through her website www.dhss.com.

Bobbi Gillette is a homeschooling mom of 20+ years to four children and wife of 25 years to Brian.  Bobbi earned a B.S. in Mathematics Education from Liberty University.  Bobbi’s oldest, Megan, just graduated with honors from Western Carolina University and David, Bobbi’s oldest son, is preparing to enter the US Air Force Academy in June. She has two sons still at home, both of whom will be in high school this coming year.  Sharing her experience in homeschooling during the high school years is a pleasure for her.

Karen Davis, a native Floridian, has homeschooled in 6 different states. Her husband’s job moved their family to the Charlotte area 3 years ago. With one homeschool graduate, and three more children at home, ages 17, 11 and 7, she will be homeschooling for quite a few years yet.  Her favorite homeschool subject is history and her favorite season is high school. Karen also enjoys networking with other homeschoolers and those thinking about homeschooling. Her local information list, Charlotte Christian Homeschoolers Network (http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/CCHNet) seeks to serve homeschoolers in the greater Charlotte area, those moving into the area, and new homeschoolers. When she has time, she likes to keep up her blog at www.karenshistoryproject.com.

Cindy Gaddis is the mother of seven children, ages 7-21, whom she has been living and learning from through homeschooling since 1992 with her husband Weston.  Her family has recently settled on 15 acres in a log home in central North Carolina where they are enjoying all that country living offers.  She has been published in Home Education Magazine and Growing Without Schooling.  Cindy has been moderating an e-mail list for families homeschooling their children with autism (aut-home-fam) since 1999, and another e-mail list for families homeschooling creative right-brained learners (homeschoolingcreatively) since 2005.  Cindy continues her extravert ways by sharing her experiences and perspectives as a featured author at the Life Without School blog as well as at her own homeschool journal blog, Applestars.

Julie is a homeschooling mom to two wonderful unschooled children in Mooresville, NC.  She enjoys time with her husband and children, hiking, gardening, knitting, reading and camping as well as participating in the PATH homeschool group, Families Learning Together, NC Unschoolers group, Unifour Home Learning, Explore and Discover, as well as participating in the online yahoo list Consensual-Living. 

Lori Barklage is a homeschooling mom to three delightful life-learners - ages 13, 11, and 9 - and wife to another (older but still young) life-learner for over 20 years. The family lives, loves, and learns in Catawba NC with a couple of really sweet dogs and what seems like a billion webkinz animals.

For years Lori has enjoyed teaching people how to invest their personal energy for a greater yield. As a Certified TAT® (Tapas Acupressure Technique) Trainer and a speaker at local, national, and international conferences and workshops she specializes in sharing practical tools to empower individuals of all ages.

Caren Knox-Hundley has been radically unschooling with her boys, Evan and Seth, for 8 years, after the temporary insanity of sending her oldest to a charter school. She's a single, working, 
unschooling mom. Woo-hoo! She lives in Charlotte, NC because she's got a thing for crime & traffic, plus: Starbucks. Oh, yeah, there's lots of cool things for the family to do, too. She's a reiki master and drum circle facilitator when she's not on the phone for an affordable housing non-profit. Her kids are 15 and 9. You can check out her blog at: http://openheartedlife.blogspot.com/

Rod Helder is the Director of the North Carolina Division of Non-Public Education in Raleigh,
a state government agency within the North Carolina Department of Administration. This agency has existed since 1961 and currently monitors all non-public elementary and high schools in the State of North Carolina for compliance to the laws governing them (both home and conventional non-public schools). During the 07-08 school year, the division dealt with about 685 conventional non-public schools and over 38,000 home schools statewide. Rod personally visits about 160 nonpublic schools each year.
Rod has been the Director of the division for over 23 years. He assumed the directorship of
the division just five weeks before the official legalization of home schools in North Carolina. Prior to his employment with the division, he served in the private school sector for 18 years in two North Carolina non-public schools, one enrolling about 400 and the other about 1200 students in grades K-12. He spent the first two of those years as a classroom teacher and then later became an Assistant Principal, Principal and Chief Administrator. From 1976 through 1985, he also served in various leadership capacities with two North Carolina statewide non-public school organizations.
Rod is married to a Raleigh area native. He and his wife have three sons and four
grandchildren.