Welcoming our Elementary Guide—Lisa Chatham—to The Forest School Team!
We are thrilled to announce that Lisa Chatham will be Founding Elementary Guide at The Forest School!
Lisa grew up in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, but after living in Georgia for over a decade, she couldn't imagine living without these Georgia pines. After extending her time in college to include a semester in Athens, Greece, she graduated from Kennesaw State University with a B.S. in Early Childhood Education. Over the next several years, she taught Preschool, Pre-Kindergarten, and Kindergarten, married her college sweetheart, and grew her family by two dogs and three kids. After settling into Tyrone, GA, Lisa began teaching third grade through a Title I virtual public school platform, reaching diverse learners from all over the state. Most recently, Lisa added a Gifted Teaching certification and was accepted to the graduate program at KSU. Her greatest passion, joy, and challenge is her family, and she gladly spends most of her time with her husband, their two sons and daughter. They enjoy any activity that takes them outside and they frequently camp, hike, explore and travel.
Lisa emerged as the leading candidate for Elementary Guide after a national search. To date, we've received over 115 applications for the role of Guide from a high quality, diverse pool of candidates. Lisa joined us for an in-person campus visit at Pinewood Forest during which she engaged with many stakeholder groups including our co-founders, multiple learners of The Forest School, volunteers, and founding parents of The Forest School.
Throughout the interview process, we came to see that Lisa is agile with young learners and gives confidence to parents and colleagues. In addition, her experience working in a virtual environment positions her to help The Forest School community identify and implement bleeding edge e-learning platforms.