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My journey with Acton Academy started with the desire to give my children the best future I could. My wife and I agreed that avoiding the public education system was best, so I began looking into the myriad of different private school systems that exist. Nothing really resonated with us and we resigned ourselves to homeschooling our children.
Then one day I heard a podcast interview about Acton Academy. It was everything I had learned about child psychology and alternative education rolled into one, like watching a 10,000-piece puzzle assemble itself before my very eyes. Then the Acton representative asked a question that stayed with me to this day: "Would you rather your kid be a good person or well educated? At Acton, they will become both." All of the other schools promised to make students good people, but none of them actually addressed how to do that. Acton puts the development of each student as a person front and center by viewing them as a hero on a journey of a lifetime
My excitement over this new schooling system quickly turned to despair though when I looked up what Acton Academies were near me: none. There was one at one hour's drive away, but they already had a waitlist. So I had a choice to make: keep living my happy and content life as it was and gamble my children's future on the hope someone else would start an Acton near me, or leave my career and build a school from the ground up in order to give the children of my region (including my own) an education that prepares them for life itself. As any parent who loves their children knows, the choice is an obvious one. I answered the call and founded Elements Of Learning: An Acton Academy.
Our location is currently pending. Please stay tuned for updates!
Bryce enjoys spending his time raising ducks, rebuilding pinball machines, and studying folklore and mythologies from around the world. He was an instrumentation technician at Western Zirconium before he chose to start this journey. His main motivation for starting this school was to give a 21st century education to the children of his area, including his own.
Jeff Sandefer lives a dual life as an entrepreneur and a Socratic Guide. As an entrepreneur, he founded his first company at age 16 and went on to found or co-found seven successful businesses. As a Socratic teacher at the University of Texas, Jeff’s students five times voted him the school’s Outstanding Teacher and Businessweek named him one of the top Entrepreneurship professors in America.
Jeff went on to co-found the Acton School of Business, an MBA program perennially ranked by the Princeton Review among the best in the nation. In 2012 The Economist honored him as one of the top fifteen Business School professors in the world.
Jeff is a graduate of the Harvard Business School, where he served for over twenty years on the school’s governing committees. He was a longtime director of the Philanthropy Roundtable and National Review magazine and one of the youngest members ever elected to the Texas Business Hall of Fame.
Laura lived on both US coasts and in between as a child, then settled into Vanderbilt University for her undergraduate studies in the College of Arts and Science. After being awarded the highly competitive Walter Wattles Fellowship at Lloyd’s of London, Laura worked in the aviation insurance industry in New York City.
Deciding to follow her calling into the world of education, Laura returned to Nashville and earned her Master of Education at Peabody College. This led her to her work at the Oklahoma Arts Institute, creating fine arts education programs for teachers and talented high school students.
Laura married Jeff Sandefer and is the happy mother of Sam and Charlie and step-mother to Taite. It is the inspiration of these children that led Laura and Jeff to co-found Acton Academy.
Her greatest hero is her mother who was a Master Teacher. Her wisest mentor is her father who sent her off to college with two words of advice: "Be curious."
Begin a Hero’s Journey,
Discover precious gifts and a commitment to mastery.
Become a curious, independent, life-long learner.
Embrace the forging of a strong character.
Cherish the arts, the physical world, and the mysteries of life.
Treasure economic, political, and religious freedom.
We believe each person has a gift that can change the world in a profound way;
We believe in learning to learn, learning to do, and learning to be.
We believe in a closely connected family of life-long learners.
We believe in economic, political, and religious freedom.
