About Me
From a young age, Natasha has always loved working with and teaching others. As a child, she was homeschooled from 3rd through 8th grade. Her mom took her sister and her on many different road trips where history came alive. This sparked her love of learning, inspiring her to think outside of the box for her future students. Eventually, Natasha started traveling the world and teaching abroad, sparking a newfound appreciation for different cultures and desire to help the world in a bigger way through education. Working with children and educating others has always been her passion, and she feels blessed to have the opportunity to do so.
In 2013, Natasha graduated from Pepperdine University with a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and earned her teaching credential. While teaching in the classroom full time in Southern California, she went on to pursue her master's degree in education through California Baptist University. She taught at Desert Sands Unified for five years working with students ranging from Kindergarten through 8th grade.
From 2019-2021, Natasha was a teacher for a charter school based in Southern California. The charter school's model provided personalized learning and education for all students in the homeschool community. While serving in this model, Natasha created personalized learning plans for her students, supported families in different curriculum choices, and monitored, organized, and assessed her students toward grade level standards. She also had the opportunity to create and teach two online writing courses for middle school. Having been a product of the homeschool model herself, she became very passionate about the opportunities to support families and students virtually and in-person in their personalized learning goals while also still being able to provide direct instruction using technology. While developing two online writing courses, she began developing her own writing curriculum that eventually culminated into self publishing it for her in-person classes she teaches today.
In the summer of 2021, Natasha moved to Boise, Idaho and began to serve the homeschool community in a larger way. She started up TRUACE Educational Services, her own business that provides different educational services and personalized tutoring to students in the Treasure Valley area. Additionally, Natasha served as a teacher and Academic Coordinator within Independent Learning Academy (ILA), a non-profit homeschool hybrid ministry program designed to provide core and elective classes to the homeschooling community. She also served as registrar for the ILA high school programs in California where she collaborated and mentored high school students. She met with them to discuss their post-graduation goals while creating transcripts and transcript legends.
Natasha now serves as a teacher and Academic Coordinator for Ethos Academy, a non-profit hybrid homeschool ministry in addition to providing her TRUACE tutoring services. She believes in personalized education and the parent's right to choose the method and materials in which they want to educate their children and bases her entire educational philosophy off of Proverbs 22:6 - "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it."
While Natasha is not teaching, she is always working toward new goals. She is a licensed EMT, occasionally volunteering her time to EMS and Fire events. In the summer, she goes on wildland fire deployments to fulfill her sense of adventure (and catch up on a ton of books she doesn't get to in the school year). She is currently aspiring to be on ski patrol at Bogus Basin in the next two seasons. Natasha is a huge adventure enthusiast! She loves riding road, mountain, and dirt bikes, traveling, exploring new secluded spots in nature, paddleboarding, shooting, skiing, baking sourdough bread and treats, serving in church, starting Bible studies, and spending time with her friends and family.
Credentials and Certificates
Bachelor's Degree in Liberal Arts from Pepperdine University
Master's Degree in Education from California Baptist University
California Teaching Credential for Grades K-6
Idaho Teaching Credential for Grades K-8
English Language Development Certificate
EMT Idaho State Liscense and Certification