Chagrin Valley Learning Collective

Meet Our Team

Meet Our Team

Learning Collective Staff

Staff at Chagrin Valley Learning Collective and other self-directed learning programs serve many different roles and consider themselves to be facilitators rather than teachers. They work with members in areas such as upholding safety, problem solving, administrative duties, and maintaining buildings and grounds.  They communicate with parents, organize field trips, maintain finances and budget, and more.  There are no staff duties that members can’t join in and contribute to if they would like.

Erin Rodriguez

Program Staff and Parent

Erin Rodriguez is a K-12 licensed Art Educator with over ten years of teaching in diverse settings. She earned a BA in Art Education from Kent State University, completing her student teaching in Quito, Ecuador. After graduation, Erin moved to Washington D.C. for three years, teaching and embracing her love for painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, and photography. She spent a year teaching English in South Korea before returning to her hometown of Cleveland Heights in 2010. Since then, Erin has been teaching art in charter schools across Cleveland as well as raising her son Franklin while simultaneously earning a Masters in Art Education from Boston University. She is drawn to Chagrin Valley Learning Collective because of its intentional education focus and the opportunity to join a community of like-minded learners.

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Paige Rutz

Program Staff
Paige Rutz has been an admirer of the free school movement and CVLC for years and is so excited to join the team this year!  Before receiving her masters in Elementary Education in 2019, Paige worked for several years in various daycares around the greater Cleveland area.  She most recently taught in a 3rd and 4th grade classroom in Collinwood and is excited to use some of her experience to work alongside staff and students to be a part of a truly democratic and student centered model of learning.
Paige is originally from a small town in upstate NY and received her undergraduate degree from Allegheny College in PA but has called Cleveland home since October, 2016.  When she’s not listening to free school books and podcasts you can find Paige hanging out in the garden, playing the ukulele, and going for walks with her husband, Nathan, their 7 month old Willow, and rescue pit bull Penny.

Kyote YOST

Program Staff

Kyotē loves to nurture the world around them. She helps care for the children, animals, and gardens of her beloved community as much as she can while balancing student life. Kyotē attends Kent State University, from which they will soon be graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in both Environmental Studies and Psychology. These combined curriculums helped Kyotē develop an intersectional understanding of wellness and healing for Earth’s collective family. Some of Kyotē’s favorite ways to foster her own wellness are singing, creating art, exploring outside with loved ones of all species, and slowing down to cherish life’s many precious moments.


Kyotē is committed to intergenerational empowerment. She believes our youth deserves the same level of respect as our elders, as they have just as much to teach us. She is ever-inspired by children’s magical imaginations and creativity. Kyotē has extensive experience engaging with youth of all ages in a variety of indoor and outdoor settings including elementary schools, state parks, farmer’s markets, summer camps, and more. She is grateful for any opportunity to cultivate safe, supportive spaces where youth can explore themselves and their worlds freely. The CVLC achieves this as successfully as Kyotē has ever seen, and she is so honored and excited to become a part of it!


Kelly Clark

Founder of Chagrin Valley School – the inspiration for Chagrin Valley Learning Collective

Kelly grew up spending her free time reading and exploring the woods with the neighborhood kids. She majored in physics at The University of Chicago (BA) and The University of California at Santa Cruz (MA). Kelly taught in several mostly progressive/mainstream educational environments from kindergarten through college undergraduate level. During that time she developed a variety of curriculum in science (physics, chemistry, physical science), math (algebra & statistics), food systems, and engineering/design and was constantly experimenting with approaches to increase students engagement with the material (coaching, team-work, inquiry-based learning, problem-based learning, experiential learning, and so on). After over a quarter of a century she had to acknowledge that she had failed to discover an approach that would result in authentic, deep, and lasting learning for even a fraction of the students. Rather she found that most students (at the high school level) were primarily focused on the evaluation aspect rather than meaningful engagement with the material. And on top of that they had very little free time and were highly stressed.

On the advice of a colleague, she looked into the democratic education model first practiced in the US by Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts. Peter Gray’s book, Free to Learn, about the fundamental role of free play in learning, inspired Kelly to leave her job at an elite private school to start the Chagrin Valley School on her permaculture farm.