About

O.E.I. Onsite Education Inc. was started in 2016 by Matthew R. Lawrence and his wife Andrea Hertach Lawrence. Andrea is a retired elementary school teacher with over 30 years of classroom experience and she has been helping her husband develop programmes and concepts to bring his passions to the field of education for over 20 years. Matthew has a formal education in marketing and advertising as well as in radio & television broadcasting, has been a professional actor, and started his own comedy improv troupe in 1997. The Canadian Improv Showcase has travelled the world representing Canadian talent for almost 30 years. Andrea brought a new market to the company by helping him create educational programming for all grade levels. Since then the troupe has visited more than 500 schools across Ontario. In 2010, Andrea urged Matthew to explore his newest passion, historical martial arts, in a similar fashion, and the Knights in the Classroom was born! Here they bring excitement to a whole new area of the curriculum and are thrilled to offer students and groups authentic, hands-on experiences such as fencing, archery, dancing, drumming watercolour, puppetry and so much more! To date, they have visited over 800 schools. The decision to combine their passions into one educational charity was not a difficult one. Upon working with the local Chamber of Commerce, Matthew was introduced to the concept of not-for-profit business and realized that he was already essentially running his companies the same way. The formal process took some time, but it affords them some benefits otherwise not available to them. It is their hope that the charitable status will allow them to bring their programmes to a greater audience. To make their charitable dreams a reality they assembled an amazing team to take on the role of Board of Directors. Made up of educators, experienced business people and retired educators, O.E.I. Onsite Education Inc. is well managed and able to offer the very best programming to every audience they serve.

Mission

The purpose of O.E.I. Onsite Education Inc. is to help advance education through onsite, interactive, tactile and memorable workshops that cover a wide array of topics and are geared towards a variety of age levels.

Board of Directors

Chief Education Officer - Andrea Hertach Lawrence

Andrea is an exceptional teacher and a published author.
She has her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from York University and a Masters of Education from O.I.S.E. (University of Toronto).
Andrea spent over 30 years in the classroom and is now thrilled to help bring to life, on a day-to-day basis, the programmes that she helped to create. Bringing hands on learning to students is her key focus. Andrea wants participants to leave all O.E.I. workshops, demonstrations and performances with authentic and memorable experiences. She hopes to share her zeal for learning with kids of all ages (young & old alike) all over the world.

2019-10-18 JS Elective fencing, AAY - 9 of 22

President - Matthew Lawrence

Matthew graduated with Honours in Marketing & Advertising from Georgian College. He also has a technical certificate in Radio & Television Broadcasting from the National Institute of Broadcasting. He has been a professional actor for 25 years and has entertained audiences all over the world with his troupe, the Canadian Improv Showcase. In 2001 he discovered an untapped joy of working in education thanks to his wife, Andrea, an elementary school teacher. In 2010, with Andrea, he turned a lifelong passion for ancient history into the Knights in the Classroom. Matthew was nominated for an Ontario Colleges Premier's Award for Outstanding College Graduates in 2013 and won the East Gwillimbury Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneur of the Year Award that same year. O.E.I. was nominated for another award by the East Gwillimbury Chamber of Commerce in 2020, this time under the Arts & Culture category.

Director - Tamara S. Mady

A 25 year veteran secondary school teacher, Tammy has had extensive experience developing and adapting program in the Arts for students from Grade 7-12. Now retired, Tammy runs her own business as a workshop facilitator and entertainer, along with working with O.E.I. Onsite Education Inc. to help develop programs for schools through the Knights in the Classroom and the Canadian Improv Showcase. She recently received her Zumba certification and adds these programming options to the O.E.I. brand. She has the unusual skills of being a bagpipe player and a motorcycle instructor. Tammy is passionate about experiential learning, life-long learning and community connections in education, making her a valuable resource on the O.E.I. board of directors.

Director - Alan Harrington

Alan Harrington is your prototypical healthy unilingual Canadian male boomer. In the mid 1980’s, Canadian culture was experiencing changes such as computerization being introduced in the business world. Alan began his professional career applying and migrating business processes to the new electronic platform. Applying legacy systems to innovation relies upon finance and accounting fundamentals as the overarching control factors, but also requires a creative component. Improv in the mid-eighties was also new, and a scarce commodity. Alan joined Second City as a student to soak up the basics. Soon he was able to combine his creative business acumen and improv skills to become a regular improv performer. Since joining the Canadian Improv Showcase in 2001, he has enjoyed success entertaining live audiences across Ontario, Hollywood and even Singapore. Alan has been recognized for his outstanding volunteer work in the community and serves as an executive on several not-for-profit charities.

Director - Elizabeth Davis

Elizabeth Davis is superintendent with the York Region District School Board with over 30 years of experience in education. She has an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and a Masters of Education in Learning from York University. She has contributed to 3 books on teaching and leadership, with a most recent focus on developing resilience in children, deep thinking and inquiry instructional strategies. Her passion for cultivating optimal learning environments for students has been inspired by her experience as a Literacy Teacher Mentor, a Special Education Resource Teacher, a Community Class teacher and homeroom teacher. She is the proud mother of two children and loves travelling, history and being outdoors.