About Us

Perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of SB Family School is what SB stands for! People usually assume it stands for Santa Barbara. It does; but it also stands for Skona Brittain, Shelly Brittain and Sandy Brittain.

About Skona: After obtaining graduate degrees in mathematics (Princeton) and computer science (Penn.), Skona taught both math and computer science at various colleges. Then she had kids and became involved in homeschooling.

Over ten years ago, Skona started coaching math teams in Santa Barbara for her own homeschooled children, and she liked it so much that she's been doing it ever since. At about the same time, she started developing SB Family School's set of Creative Mathematics classes, which she teaches in a variety of venues. And a few years ago, she helped bring Math Circles to Santa Barbara and has started several different ones. Skona really enjoys facilitating kids enjoying math.

In addition to math coaching and teaching, Skona designs and sells unique mathematical and scientific clocks and t-shirts, and works as a freelance copyeditor, for everything from glossy magazines to advanced computer science textbooks. In her spare time, she is writing a physics book (Fizyx for Felines), among other things, and she produces the only personalized math story workbook.

As a part-time employee of the Santa Barbara School District, Skona has recently passed their required fingerprinting and TB tests. (So now you can be assured that she is neither too deviant nor too sick to trust your kids with her. :-))

Her volunteer work includes coaching a high school ARML team, copyediting for local nonprofit organizations, and reading math and science books at Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic.

About Shelly: Shelly is Skona's oldest daughter. She was homeschooled for grades 4, 7, 8 and 9.

Shelly placed 1^st in the Math Super Bowl all 3 years - 4^th, 5^th & 6^th grade.

Shelly accepting the Math Super Bowl Award for 1st Place at age 10.

In MathCounts, she advanced to the State Competition all 3 years - 6^th, 7^th & 8^th grade, placing 5^th, 3^rd and 1^st in the Regional Competition, respectively. The last year of those years, she placed 5^th at the State Competition, higher than anyone else from Santa Barbara County has ever placed, before or since, and just barely missing advancing to the National Competition.

The Top Ten Finalists on stage at the State MathCounts Competition.

She tied with 17 other kids for #1 in California on the AMC-8 with a perfect score, and on the AMC-12, as an 11^th grader, she was #1 at Dos Pueblos High School.

As a high school freshman, Shelly worked in the Math Tutoring Lab at Santa Barbara City College, and she now works for a high-tech company.

Shelly is also an award-winning mathematical artist, for her miniature unit origami. She has taught unit origami to both kids and adults.

12-year-old Shelly displaying some of her unit origami creations at a homeschoolers fair.

About Sandy: Sandy is Skona's youngest daughter. She was homeschooled for grades K,1,2,5,6,7 and 12.

She placed 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th in the Math Super Bowl competition in 4^th, 5^th & 6^th grade, respectively, and was a member of the first SBFS team to win an award.

The whole family at the Math Super Bowl with Sandy's award-winning 6th grade team, in our old-style team t-shirts.

In MathCounts, she also advanced to the State Competition all 3 years - 6^th, 7^th & 8^th grade, and came in 2^nd in a tie-breaker for 1^st place as a 7^th grader.

In addition to working at the SBCC Math Tutoring Lab and the Digital Arts Center, Sandy has extensive experience tutoring math and computers privately.

Sandy began programming computers when she was 10 years old, which was years after she started using HTML. In 2010, she was a key member of the team that placed first among junior college teams at the ACM Programming Competition.

Now she works as a freelance web designer, as well as a part-time iPhone App developer, while taking math and computer classes at SBCC and UCSB.

Ten-year-old Sandy demonstrating her first BASIC computer program, which may look like an ordinary-tic-tac-toe game but is actually tic-tac-toe on a torus.