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Enroll Now. About Awaken Academy. Learn More. Engage Students. Foster Community. Support Parents. Create Opportunities. The Dunnes have founded nine homeschool academies across California and are thrilled to have the honor of making history with the launch of Awaken Academy.

Raechelle Rodriguez and her husband, Ray, have two beautiful daughters, Faith age 17 and Amanda age Through Choose Health, Raechelle is helping families navigate challenging topics like sex, substance use and suicide through online student health courses. She is excited to be partnering with the teachers and parents of Awaken Academy. Eastlake Site Director Monica Hernandez. Charise Ladwig is the site coordinator at Bressi Ranch. Before coming to Awaken Academy, she spent 12 years teaching homeschool students privately and fell in love with the homeschool model.

Balboa Faculty. Laura Cieslukowski. Live story-telling, celebrity interviews, tv appearances, and hosting large-venue concerts filled her mornings and evenings! Using the airwaves for the good of individuals in the community was always her favorite part of broadcasting.

Her dream was to have a non-profit that allowed Laura to be a part of seeing peoples' lives be transformed. Through relationships formed at our weekly dinner party, we are able to offer a helping hand to those ready to walk away from addiction and life on the streets. Laura is also a second-year homeschool parent to her 3 daughters, Joelle 12 , Alannah 8 and Naomi 7. Abby Bowman. Previously, she has taught all levels of high school Spanish and now uses her educational knowledge and mama instincts to homeschool her 4-year-old son.

Abby believes in the long-term impact of the first 5 years of a child's life, so she is thrilled to partner with Awaken Academy to instill biblical truths and a love of learning in little ones. Ebey Sorrenson. Ebey Sorenson is a parent of three young boys and has been home-schooling her oldest starting in She was homeschooled in Junior High herself, and fell in love with self-directed education and the freedom and flexibility she had to pursue her passions as a tween homeschooler.

She has many fond memories of her parents, who are missionaries, reading out loud to her and her three siblings even into the highschool years. Her love of rich literature has led her to embrace a Charlotte Mason-informed home-school style for her own family where "living books" are cherished.

She has worked with children as a camp counselor, Art Instructor, swim instructor, student teacher, and an Autism Behavioral Intervention Specialist. After John and Ebey started their family, she became a homemaker and advocate for one of her sons who has extra learning needs. It was through working with his dedicated early childhood specialists that Ebey fell in love with the play-based learning model for early education, and learned best practices for developing a positive parent and child relationship.

Even with all of the degrees and expertise that Ebey brings, she has wrestled with feeling unqualified and incapable of educating her own children. She loves helping parents break through that same mindset to embrace their fullest potential, and to realize that they are the best person qualified to direct the education of their children. Ebey has seen the fruit of developing a strong connection and healthy attachment with her boys, and has helped develop the Early Learning Programs at Awaken Academy.

Her husband, John Sorenson, serves as a leader in the Pathfinders Ministry and is actively involved in home-schooling and intentionally discipling their three boys. Ebey loves art, baking cookies, reading historical fiction, going to the beach, and playing board games. Her boys love read-alouds, baking, legos, swimming, science experiments, and playing sports.

John loves peace and quiet, but that is a rarity in the Sorenson home for the time being. Alena Baker. Alena Baker is a mother of 5 children who she has been homeschooling since her eldest was in Second grade. She currently has a 6th, 4th, 2nd, kindergartner and Toddler.

Alena has an Associates in Elementary Education, as well as 4 years of experience homeschooling and teaching other children in a Sunday school church setting.

She enjoys teaching and encouraging others as they learn new things. Homeschooling was never in her plan until God called her to homeschool her son in Her other children are Stanley 15 , Christie 13 and Caleb 9. She is passionate about educating children according to the Christian worldview and raising them up to be eloquent in defending their faith. She is proud to partner with Awaken Academy to guide and encourage parents in their homeschooling journey to raise culture shifters and world changers.

Mari-liis Galvin. Mari-liis holds her Master Certificate in Etiquette Counseling and continues further her education. Her strong commitment to coaching has helped individuals and businesses to further growth and expansion.

Mari-liis knows the importance and confidence that comes with knowledge and action — it changes lives and encourages incredible growth. She carriers a medical assistant degree from Didaktus in Stockholm and a certificate in Organization leadership from Stockholm University.

Mari-liis is fluent in four languages and is also teaching Swedish at the Private Swedish Academy. When Mari-liis is not teaching you can find her out running or hiking with her husband Timothy.

Long distance runs are something that she enjoys the most. Christine Fleury. Christine Fleury is a homeschooling mom of three. Beginning in her early teenage years, she has served in various Ministry roles, nearly all of which involved working with young children. She is an old soul with a child-like heart and truly comes alive in the classroom.

Nothing makes her happier than seeing people come to know God better, to view themselves, and everyone and everything around them the way He does. As much as she enjoys art and music and any subject she has the privilege of teaching , to her it is all ultimately a bridge to connect with people and guide them to Truth.

David R. Married for 38 years so far, he is a father of four children and a grandfather to seven with more to come. Lucy Rosenthal is a passionate person that finds fulfillment in being a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ. Maria Harris. Maria Harris has been an advocate for children before having a child of her own. From tutoring kids in under-served communities to providing guidance to children detained in juvenile hall facility in San Francisco, Maria wants to continue to be an advocate and work alongside with parents as a guide to nurture kids at the Academy with faith and learn through a play-based structured model.

Alongside her husband, Tony, they are homeschooling their kiddo and enjoy playing board games at home and enjoy being together in nature and walking around Mission Bay.

Natasha Greer. God recently called her family to move to San Diego in January of for His purposes, and this is one of them! Angel homeschooled her children for 10 years. She was a youth leader in Missouri with her husband. She graduated from high school from Park Avenue Christian school, a church school in Missouri. She loves to experiment with food and enhance others' desires to eat healthy especially kids. Angel has her degree in Psychology.

She loves Jesus, Awaken, her family and friends. Alan Walter. Alan has been a licensed California Real Estate Broker for 20 years with experience in real estate sales, property management and investment.

I am is a wife and mom of two boys. Before having my own kids I worked as a behavioral therapist and have a degree in counseling psychology. I started homeschooling my children in when schools shut down.

Never thinking I would ever homeschool, I found myself quickly pivoting in that direction, and with the help and resources of friends and other seasoned homeschooling parents at Awaken Academy it helped ease the pressure of this new journey. Now, not only have I enjoyed teaching my own children, I truly enjoy partnering with parents teaching other students as well.

In my free time I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, working out, cooking, and reading. Brianna Ontiveros. Together they have a daughter Mia Victoria 5. At Awaken Academy Brianna has seen how much of an impact working in community along side like minded people has in the lives of our children.

Lisa Baldwin. Lisa Baldwin grew up in Wisconsin where she accepted Jesus into her heart at age four and has since followed Him with a heart full of devotion. Her teaching career covers over 30 years in public schools, Christian schools, and in the homeschooling community. In these years, she added an ESL license, worked in the inclusion program for early childhood special education, and was team leader in several grade level departments.

She has had a tutoring business in her home for children Kindergarten through 8th grade while her boys were little. She has been homeschooling both her boys since kindergarten and now Luke is in seventh grade and Will is in fifth grade. Her family loves to take road trips to visit family and friends, explore history and go to all amusement parks that the USA has to offer.

She attends Awaken Church, and this is her second-year attending Awaken Academy. She feels privileged to share her passion for learning and loves to teach these World Changers at Awaken Balboa. Claudia Lopez. She has years of experience in laboratory research and as a medical assistant. She hopes to become an osteopathic physician and help many people find their root cause of disease and use food as medicine.

At Awaken Academy, she serves as a parent lead for Pre-K and hopes to encourage families to learn together. She loves to be creative, play legos, and go to the beach with her two beautiful children. Ron Starzinski. Ron Starzinski possesses a deep and wide range of mathematics and science knowledge, both academic and industry related.

He holds an MBA from St. His corporate experience includes developing and implementing enterprise-wide process improvement methodologies.

Academically, he has tutored math and science students at both the High School and Undergraduate College levels and is particularly gifted at making technical subjects real and understandable, regardless of achievement level. Carina Tarpley. She worked as an environmental consultant for a private company in Sacramento and then made the move back to her home town San Diego to be closer to her family. Carina found institutional inconsistencies when combining politics, marketplace, climate science, and environmental justice.

Eventually, Carina worked for Nordstrom for 14 years starting in sales, cosmetics, merchandising, and eventually management. With a growing family, the Lord put it on Carina's heart to be home with her children more and more.

Upon her exit, Nordstrom offered to train her in another trade. That is when she began her career as a makeup artist in Carina has worked on fashion shows, charity events, weddings, corporate shoots, private clients, and now the sets of Hero and Twisted at Awaken Church!

Carina is happily married to her Emerge man husband, David. David works as a registered Architect designing in the public and private sectors.

She is a second year homeschool mom. For mothers who are nursing, we have a room located just outside the auditorium, complete with live feed and audio so you can enjoy the entire service with your baby. Awaken Kidz 6 months to 5th grade Our Awaken Kidz ministries team believes Sunday should be the best day of the week!

But Awaken Kidz is about more than just having an amazing time at church. They get together Sunday evenings at a local restaurant.

We have Connect Groups for all seasons of life, and in every Connect, you can expect to find community, faith development, and prayer. We have groups of every type, time, and location. This hour of Power is open to all and includes practical training that will help take your prayer life to the next level.

Proactively praying in promises and revelation. Check out all our upcoming Awaken Church events, conferences and musicals.