The Beginning

January 19th 2025, Erin, a lady I’d barely met at my son’s basketball game, stood by me in my kitchen while I stirred an extra-large pan of vermicelli to feed our two families. “I will help you,” -- four words that changed the course of my family and potentially the United States education scene. She wasn’t referring to making dinner, but to my off-hand comment that I might start a school someday. 

The conviction in her eyes when she said those words, and the follow up to my inquiry, of “really?” with her resolute, “100%,” set the ball rolling. Before bed, I asked my husband if he thought we should actually consider this. That night, and every night for weeks afterwards, my mind was filled with a deluge of vision and passion. From this, The Academy was born. 

Why? 

I believe in resilient individuals who can withstand hardships and afflictions. Because of this, I’ve been determined to keep my children in the public school system–I want my children to be able to cope in the society they live in. Public school has been challenging for us, but we have intentionally chosen to continue to persevere.  

However, as soon as we decided to found The Academy, my heart became enraged at what my children, and our family, have experienced in the public-school environment–and disappointed in myself that I continued to submit my children to it. I don’t refer to the faculty or staff at my children’s schools. They have been extraordinary and have given so much to create a loving, joyful, supportive environment for my children. The afflictions my children faced were from the other children at their schools–which I feel are the result of uneducated or unsupported parenting.

I reflected again and again on a birthday party my second-grade son attended. My husband dropped him off at the party where it was hosted at a lovely park in the area. However, when I came back to pick him up, I saw that the seven- and eight-year-old boys weren’t playing at the park on this beautiful day. They were packed into a dark trailer playing violent video games, and had been doing so for the past 3 hours. I came over to mingle with the other mothers and proceeded to listen to them bemoan their sons’ behavior issues, aggression, failure in school–and the medications their children were taking to deal with these problems. 

I was horrified. And I immediately began to teach my children to be kind to every child, learn their names, and use them when they greet them each day. Why? So that when those elementary children grow and they come to middle school or high school, if they choose to bring a gun, they will look at my child and remember that he was always kind to them. And hopefully my child might not be included in any violence that might take place. If a pill was the only thing keeping these children’s brains sufficiently intact to function in society, I couldn’t bank on that child’s medication to keep my child safe.

Over the years, it wasn’t only the physical safety that was in jeopardy. When my kindergartener’s genitals were probed by another little boy, he told him to stop, but the response was further aggression and invitations for my son to do the same back. When I reached out to the school to inform them that this same son was being kissed on the playground by another little boy, the result was bullying, including daily verbal and physical assaults. Finally, when my son reached the point of crying himself to sleep every night, we saw that it was imperative that we pull him from school for a while to rebalance and ground him in the loving environment we were providing for him at home. 

This would be the third time we would pull a child from school to help them rebalance and recenter in order to help them face the afflictions of the public-school environment. One of his brothers, in first grade, had been exposed to egregiously sexually explicit content and had been subject to daily sexual invitations from the little girl who sat next to him at lunch–who elaborately informed him of her experiences of having intercourse with her 14-year-old boyfriend, who was her brother.  

The effects of all of this on our son was devastating. His precious innocence was ripped from him and the mental, emotional and sexual anguish was tremendous. And, of course, as it is with children, the innocence of his brothers was vanquished as well as this whole new world was opened to our family.

This is only a sampling of the afflictions our children experienced in the public-school environment, with the society that is growing up around them. Every day was a labor to nourish and recenter our sons when they would come home from school. When it became too challenging for our children to rebalance, we would pull them from public school, reground them in homeschool, then send them back in–to develop resilience.

At the same time The Academy concept began to unfold, we received information from our pediatrician that some blood work had come back indicating that one of our sons might have liver cancer–the same condition that had taken the life of my husband’s brother when they were small children. 

I was devastated. Not only at the potential path our family was about to take, but that if my child’s life would be ending within the next year, this is the daily life I’d subjected him to?! Known daily affliction to pursue resilience?! He came home from school every day depleted, angry, and dreading to have to go back tomorrow. But I hadn’t listened! In this world that is so full, so abundant, so beautiful; in a family that is so full of love and joy and harmony; in a time when all the beauties of life are available to be enjoyed on every level, and in every way, and totally accessible to us through minimal effort–and this is the life I’d chosen for him?! 

Gratefully, through further testing, we discerned that he doesn’t have cancer, but the principle is paramount in my mind–my children are here to experience the magnificence of life, and to grow to find their fullest, most abundant self. I believe The Academy can do that better than any other organization, institution or method for my children. 

Additionally, The Academy aims to address the problem at large. It is designed to empower parents–both those who are enrolled at The Academy, and all others in the community, to know how to raise children who are mentally, emotionally and socially well-adjusted. If the parents of a community are empowered to overcome the depraved society that is growing around us, then these precious children can flourish. And that opportunity for flourishing is what The Academy aims to provide for children, for parents, and for the community at large; here in the outskirts of Atlanta, and eventually throughout the United States.