Dr. Joy Vansant

Dr. Rhonda Vansant is an educator who has devoted her professional life to the advocacy of loving, nurturing, developmentally appropriate settings for children and for inspiring, truly meaningful educational practices for learners of all ages. She received a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education from the University of Georgia and began teaching in 1972. She later completed further graduate work at Peabody College for Teachers. She received her Doctorate Degree in Curriculum and Supervision from Vanderbilt University in 1991. She taught all grades Kindergarten through Sixth in rural, inner city, and suburban settings in Georgia and Tennessee. She was a home schooling mother. She was a private teacher for middle school students. She taught college at Kennesaw State in Kennesaw, Georgia and at Lewis and Clark in Portland, Oregon.

Her roles within education have encompassed teaching, writing, speaking, consulting, serving on numerous committees, directing major projects such as revising the Georgia Kindergarten Assessment Program , and serving on Boards such as the Board of Directors for the Primrose School and a charter school in Oregon called the Garden Laboratory School. She has provided leadership for educational change for four decades and has now created a foundation to provide leadership and resources. She wants to provide knowledge and guidance to parents, grandparents, educators, and policy-makers so that in these troubling times, they may be informed, enlightened, and inspired to provide foundational learning experiences that will lead to productive, happy, meaningful lives for them and their children.