Kim Groves was born and raised in Salisbury, MD.  Her parents, Sam and Cheryl, wanted the best for her, sacrificing so she could attend Tiny Tot Day School for Preschool and Kindergarten.  She then attended both Fruitland Primary and Fruitland Intermediate Schools, having many wonderful, thoughtful teachers who opened her eyes to the world around her.  In middle and high school, she attended both Bennett Middle and James M. Bennett High, graduating in 1994.  Kim chose to remain close to home, having all her family in the area, and attended Salisbury University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and a minor in History in 1998, and a Master of Arts in Teaching in 2003.

 

After marrying in 2006, Kim and her husband moved away, living in Lynchburg, VA and then West Melbourne, FL for nine and two years respectively.  In the intervening years, Kim had her daughter, Emily, now six.  While living in Lynchburg, Kim worked as a substitute teacher and long-term substitute teacher, giving her a unique perspective on the many classroom and social challenges teachers, students and parents face.  She also worked as a homebound school instructor, giving her an opportunity to see how students dealing with illness were being educated by the school system.  

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Kim left the profession when she moved to Florida to spend more time with her then six-month old daughter.  She used that time to engage in community programs that allowed parents and young children to come together to learn and engage, and she was also able to teach her daughter at home. Kim wanted to give her daughter the same start she had in life, and enrolled her in a small early-learning center in Florida.  Her daughter remained there one year before the family returned to Maryland.

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When Kim and her family returned to Maryland, she began working to find a preschool for her daughter, eventually finding Stepping Stones Early Learning Center.  Emily has been a student of Stepping Stones since 2018, and is now in First Grade, and will be in Second Grade this fall.  She also found a passion working with the disadvantaged of the community, and has seen many times over how schools have treated and "othered" by other students, teachers, and administrators based on their address. She has also seen first-hand how the education system has turned from a system that once valued true learning and instead now is forced into a system of social justice indoctrination, making students and parents choose between a grade and their own moral system.

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