Foundations Teaching Staff

Team Leader and Survey of History
Cynthia Pilling has business background in tourism, curriculum sales, and marketing, and has conducted workshops and seminars for the homeschooling community for the last 19 years. Cindy’s love of history comes from teaching her own five children (ages 9, 19-24) using hands-on unit study methods.  As a result of mentoring and the study of God’s unique design and development of a child’s brain, she delights in engaging her students emotionally to increase their learning potential and retention. Cindy’s great desire is to use the study of history to expose the truths of Scripture – to make the Word of God relevant to everyday life and, thereby, inspire students to make Godly choices to impact their futures. Her experiences and strengths of Responsibility, Context, Maximizer, Communication, and Achiever uniquely qualify her to serve as Team Leader for the Foundations teaching team. 2012/13 will be her eleventh year as a member of the Foundations program staff.

Worldview
Daniel Stitt is a graduate of the University of Central Florida, holding a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature.  He is currently studying Christian Education at the Masters level through Liberty University Online.  Daniel hopes to inspire his students by integrating his strengths of positivity, ideation, maximizer, input, and futuristic thinking into his teaching methodology.

Survey of Science
Jayci McKinney graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education.  She taught in the multi-age setting at Celebration School until she decided to stay at home after having her son, Mason.  Jayci is involved with the Children’s Ministry at Real Life Christian Church in Orlando, where her husband, Mitch, is the lead pastor.  She is passionate about children and their growth socially, mentally, and spiritually.  Jayci has taught in a variety of environments during her eight years with CCS. Her strengths are harmony, achiever, discipline, belief, and consistency.

Survey of Visual Arts
Leigh Yeargin joined the Foundations team in January 2010. She and her family have called Oviedo home since moving from South Florida six years ago.   Leigh and her husband, Bill, have been married 28 years. For ten years Leigh was able to home school their daughters, including one Circle graduate.   It is Leigh’s joy to share her love of art and to encourage children to explore and discover their own artistic talent.  She strives to fashion a pleasant environment which will awaken students’ senses, spark creativity, and enrich their artistic expression. It’s not surprising, then, that Leigh’s strengths are harmony, empathy, ideation, developer, belief.

Survey of Performing Arts
Rana Smith holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Texas at Arlington. She has served as a Children’s Director, Children’s Ministry Consultant, and has led national Pastors’ Wives Conferences. Rana is a homeschooling mom of three incredible girls. She has served alongside her husband in ministry for almost twenty years. She currently serves as a Children’s Director in the Longwood area.  This is Rana’s second year on the Foundations team.

Kindergarten and First Grade
Amy Smith has spent over 30 years working with children in educational settings, enrichment programs, and ministries, including homeschooling her daughter from 2nd grade to graduation.  God has continually called her throughout the years to use her gifts in an early education environment.   Amy endeavors to foster a nurturing environment where consistency is a key element in leading her students to experience success socially, academically, and developmentally.  Amy loves investing in the lives of little ones to uncover their unique needs and talents in order to enrich their individual gifts.  Her classroom instruction is designed to fully engage students with a variety of hands-on, age appropriate activities like teamwork exercises, making crafts, singing songs, creating games and dramatic role playing. Amy joined the Foundations team in January 2011.

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