CM West
Charlotte Mason West was born out of the 2015 Northwest Charlotte Mason Educators Conference. For many of us, this was the first time we had ever met another Mason educator, and we didn’t want it to be the last! We decided we wanted to provide opportunities for Mason educators to continue to meet and we also hoped that through conferences and other events we could help grow the Charlotte Mason community in the west.
Currently we are focusing our efforts on regional retreats/conferences for 50-60 people and we have successfully held several already. We hope you will join us at a future event! We also facilitate a live online video discussion, where we meet once a month to discuss one of Mason’s volumes. We completed a study of Vol. 2 in the summer of 2017, Vol. 5 in Dec. 2018, and began a study of Vol. 4 in April 2019. You can join our mailing list to find out more about the next study group, as well as our events and other events of interest to CM Educators in the west.
In order to share the work of putting on conferences, we currently have two regional teams, with Amber Vanderpol managing the website and CM West mailing list.
Northern California
Amber Vanderpol
Amber is a mother to six children, ranging from a teen to a baby born in August 2017. She has homeschooled from the beginning using some of Mason’s methods, but began following Charlotte Mason’s Philosophy of Education in earnest about six years ago. Amber particularly enjoys reading good books, having thoughtful conversations, and being outdoors. Amber and her family live on 10 acres in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in a home she and her husband largely built by themselves. She writes about her homeschool and Mother Culture at Flare of Light and ambervanderpol.
Celeste Cruz
Celeste lives in the South Bay with her husband and their nine children, all thirteen and under. Once upon a time she was training to be an English professor; now she can usually be found with a baby strapped to her back and toddlers underfoot as she learns alongside her five school-aged kids. (Some days are more successful than others.) When she has her hands free, she enjoys distance running, reading, and nature journaling. She discovered Charlotte Mason before her children were born and has been an enthusiastic devotee ever since. She moderates at the AmblesideOnline Forums, curates content for charlottemasonirl, and shares the joys of a Catholic Charlotte Mason home education at Joyous Lessons and celeste_cruz.
Seattle
Bethany Lowndes
Kathy Wickward
Portland
Emily Pastor