Sandra Dodd has been unschooling for a lifetime (Holly Dodd's lifetime), because Holly was born when Kirby was five and the Dodds were in their first year of opting out of compulsory education. The alternative parenting was already going strong, with attachment parenting and family bed picked up from La Leche League when Kirby was a baby in 1986.

Sandra lives in Albuquerque with her husband Keith and two-thirds of their three children. Kirby moved to Austin in August 2007, at the age of barely-21, to work for Blizzard Entertainment. Marty is 21; Holly is 18. Sandra is a former instructor of English, a writer by compulsion, and by vocation examines the underpinnings and practicalities of unschooling and mindful parenting.

Sandra has had unschooling articles in various regional and international publications since 1992. Moving a Puddle is a collection of the articles published before 2005, and Sandra Dodd's Big Book of Unschooling is a sort of summary of Sandra's unschooling webpage.