Hi I’m Ipshi, and I’m so excited to be building an Acton Academy for my family and my community in Lanark County, Ontario.

After my husband passed away suddenly in 2024, it became imperative to me to give my children the best foundation to have a fulfilling life. To me, that meant providing them with the absolute best learning environment that I can.

All the traditional school options available to us in Lanark County do not align with what my husband and I have wanted for our children. After researching many alternative schooling models around the world, I was inspired when I found Acton Academies. ​A school where children are asked to dream big and are meaningfully supported to go after their goals and reach their full potential? Where they hone their unique talents, skills, and interests? Where there is a focus on building a strong character? Yes, please!   

It sounds like a crazy thing to do—to build a school—and I would never have predicted it of myself. But now that it’s happening it feels exactly right.

I know there is a need. As the founder of Curious Community—a 200-families strong community of homeschoolers in Lanark County and west Ottawa—over the past few years, I have heard from many parents of the need for a schooling option that offers something different to what currently exists. Many families have chosen to homeschool because of a lack of a compelling alternative to traditional school and others make do with a traditional school model that doesn't inspire them. I know we are ripe for an alternative like Acton in our community.

I am passionate about learner-driven education. As a homeschooling and unschooling mom for 7 years, I know how beautiful and fulfilling education can be when children are given agency to decide the path they want to take and are then supported on that journey.

I have the skills to and want to do it. I have run a successful editing business for the past 15 years. My husband and I general contracted the build of a log house in the middle of the woods during the pandemic. I know that it takes hard work, grit, passion, and creativity to make a dream into a reality—to build something beautiful from scratch! Building an Acton for my children and my community is my next dream.

So I’m channeling all my skills, my passion for learner-driven education, and the love I have for my children and community towards this dream. Life is short and this is so important! I've imagined the school I wish I went to and am building it so that my children and their peers in Lanark County can attend it. I know if I build it, the families that this resonates with will come!