Anthony, Natahsa (a new UPWS board member), Tony and Summer (UPWS grade 2)
There was a time when NaTasha and Tony DeNeal considered homeschooling—a fitting school path for two entrepreneurs. But the nurturing environment, strong sense of community, and shared values make Urban Prairie and City Garden Early Childhood Center, where Anthony, age 5, attends kindergarten, feel like extended family. “We found our home away from home,” NaTasha explains.
The couple delights in the focus on comprehension and imagination at UPWS. “When Ms. V. tells us a story,” says Summer, age 7, “we imagine and draw what kind of hair that the princess has from the story.” In Summer’s example, NaTasha recognizes the important ability “to take a story, create, and add on to it. In the end, it contains everyone’s perspective.” Tony adds, “Comprehension comes first in a Waldorf education, creating these vivid pictures instead of teaching rote memorization.”
Both DeNeals have a history of creating their own stories. Leaving corporate America to be a stay-at-home mom was a big step for NaTasha. “Working since the age of 14, it is hard to turn it off,” she says of her itch to start a business once both children were in school. She asked herself, “What can I do for other kids that I do for my own kids?” The answer was Smart Vending Systems, “making a difference one vend at a time.” It’s a family endeavor, with her children taste-testing the healthy items sold in vending machines in schools and other facilities.
Tony’s entrepreneurial story begins when he visited a chiropractor after a car accident while in college and realized he wanted to help others through chiropractic. He opened his first office in Old Town, specializing in corrective care chiropractic services. Now a founding partner in ChiroOne and director of clinical operations for the south region, Tony envisions adding nurse practitioners and growing the business from 41 locations to 1,000 worldwide.
Tony likes Waldorf education because he wants his children to love learning from the beginning and not have a force-fed education “I was that way,” he says. “I read but didn’t have the understanding. There were lots of things I had to go back and re-learn because I didn’t care to learn the first time around. I don’t want to re-create that for my children.”