Teacher Bios - Keystone Hybrid 1

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Kiesha Shoemaker

Kiesha has over 25 years of teaching experience and is a Georgia Certified teacher. She has homeschooled, at various levels, 5 of her 6 children. Developing curriculum adapted from state standards and in preparation for upper education is foremost in her methods of teaching.

As a foster mom for many years, Kiesha is loving and compassionate to students and families with sensitive backgrounds and loves to help families build from where they are. She has decades of both personal and educational experience with students with individual learning needs.

As an Educator to the Deaf, she has 30 years experience in teaching American Sign Language, ASL. In Arizona she co-founded a Deaf School and very much enjoyed teaching deaf students many subjects K-12. There, she also, developed Science, Math, and History curriculum, while serving as Lead Teacher in modeling good practices for other teachers K-8.

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Nira Scheer

Nira is a passionate, compassionate educator with 20-plus years of experience. She has a Master's in Jewish Education from Gratz College and a Bachelor of Arts from American University.

After spending years as a classroom teacher, she spent a decade building curriculum and mentoring teachers from Kindergarten through 7th grade. She wrote and led Family Education and created curricula for various non-profits.

For the last twelve years, she has homeschooled her five kids (now ages 14-24) while teaching within the homeschool community extensively.

Nira has experience teaching kids with special needs (such as those with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, ADHD).

She is also a chaplain, having received her training at ALEPH Rabbinical School and Children’s Healthcare of America.

Kristin Petersen

Kristin is a lifelong crafter with the motto “We can make that!” Around seven years ago, she began focusing heavily on sewing, where creative freedom and practical skills meet. Aside from sewing for herself, her family, and her friends, Kristin has created bridal veils, formal gowns, and costumed a number of productions for community theaters in Georgia. She also has over ten years of education experience, so sharing this craft with young people naturally melds her passions for teaching and creating. Sewing and other crafts are obviously fun to do, but the skills students gain go beyond just the enjoyment. Sewing is about creative problem solving. Planning and executing a project develops spatial reasoning and invites one to keep building and refining skills and techniques. Kristin is eager to nurture all these capacities in her students.

Kelly McKoon

Kelly is a compassionate teacher with over 17 years of teaching experience in both private and public schools, including working with children of all ability levels. Kelly has a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of West Georgia in Early Childhood Education, and she is Georgia-certified to teach children in grades ranging from Pre-K through 5th. By following the Georgia Standards, Kelly uses a holistic approach to teaching the curriculum, including music, hands-on manipulatives, calendar math, and read-alouds with activities supporting learning content. Kelly believes that children learn best by relating curriculum to “real life” examples. Kelly is an avid reader and crocheter who creates a variety of items she sells at local arts and crafts festivals. Kelly has dedicated the past several years to substitute teaching while overseeing the many after-school activities of her 2 children.

Karissa InCreation Miller

Karissa is a degreed working artist and art educator with 15+ years experience teaching children and adults in the field of visual arts. She has earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Education at the University of West Georgia. She has also earned several certifications in child care development at the Childcare Education Institute. Karissa thrives on creating a safe space for her students to learn and self express varying in ages from P-12 grades and adults.

As an Atlanta, Georgia native, mother of two grown daughters, grandparent of two amazing grandchildren and pet parent to three fur babies-she is inspired daily by connections to family, self and nature and how those connections can change and educate us for deeper, more spiritual living. As a mother to a teen with special abilities & needs, Karissa has had 18 years adapting curriculum and applying empathy, patience and understanding both in and out of the classroom setting for her daughter and students.

Karissa loves to create using recycled & found materials for the purpose of renewal and sustainability. Though skilled in painting, printmaking, wood works, metal works, drawing, mixed media, photgraphy and jewelry making, She is the most happy in creating & teaching ceramics and sculpture at the child, teen & adult levels of learning.

Karissa keeps her focus always on building new pathways to safe self-expression through experimental creative processes in a multimedia art. Her personal work is focused on trauma & healing, spiritual inclinations & patterns as they relate to the living world. Karissa’s work is both reactionary and visionary in the response to the world around her and can often take a comedic path in her vast imagination of ideas.

Kelsey Wiley

Kelsey is a former clinical chemist who discovered her true passion was teaching. She teaches 8th grade math up to Calculus and teaches AP Chem and AP Bio test prep classes. She tutors all college level chemistry and biology classes as well. Kelsey has experience with students with ADHD and ASD, and prides herself on her adaptable teaching methods. She strongly believes that self-learning is paramount for both academic success and lifelong happiness. She rejects the notion that math is a dry subject and reminds her students that high school math is preparing us for calculus, the language of physics. Calculus and physics allow us to model everything from astrologic forces and the space time continuum to the movement of electrons. Instead of regarding math and science problems as a boring chore, students are encouraged to view problems as engaging puzzles. When working on a math or science assignment, students can become completely engrossed, a practice akin to mindfulness and believed to reduce anxiety and improve cognitive function.

Kelsey intends to homeschool her two and five year old, although she would like someone else to teach them how to hold a pencil. Experiencing the joy of her children’s natural curiosity, unadulterated self confidence and hilariously immature jokes is the most meaningful and joyful experience of her life.

Children hunger for knowledge and are natural experimenters. Kelsey’s ultimate goal is to foster those inclinations throughout adulthood.

Jennifer Swan

Jennifer Swan has been a homeschooling parent with Keystone since its inception. She has graduated two of her three children, with her youngest now entering high school. While she has only enjoyed cooking and baking, as a hobby it turned into a necessity when her oldest was diagnosed with life threatening allergies and each child subsequently brought their own allergies to the table. She has mastered the art of making all food “Swan Safe” and delicious. (Quite a feat when avoiding the majority of top-8 allergens plus others).

Now she would like to pass along the fun of cooking, baking, meal planning, shopping and a list of basic tools every beginning chef needs so they can do the same in their homes.