Carolina Collegiate Academy was not built from a business plan. It was built from two decades in classrooms, a daughter who deserved something better, and a community that had run out of options.

I am a lifelong educator with nearly twenty years of experience teaching students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade across public, private, and homeschool settings. I hold a Bachelor of Science in Education and a Master of Education in Learning Design and Technology Integration. I am currently completing my doctoral studies in education — work that directly informs how Carolina Collegiate Academy is designed, how instruction is delivered, and how students are supported across different learning styles and needs.

My career has taken me across every level of education. I have taught in traditional classrooms, led a homeschool cooperative as its director, worked as a private tutor, coached competitive debate, and served as a judge for the National Forensics League. I am a member of the National Forensics Society's Degree of Honor — a recognition earned through years of dedication to the academic development of student voices.

My subject expertise is deepest in science, STEM, and social studies, though my integrated approach to instruction means that writing, analytical thinking, and academic communication run through everything I teach. I do not believe in subjects that exist in isolation. Neither do my students.

Why I Built This Program

The honest answer is personal and professional in equal measure.

My daughter is the first reason. As a homeschooling parent, I found myself looking for a program that offered genuine academic rigor, hands-on science, and a small community of curious peers — without the compromises that came with every available option nearby. Too large. Too faith-prescriptive. Too shallow academically. Too far. I kept looking for something that did not exist in our community.

So I built it.

The professional reason is the same gap viewed from the other side. After nearly two decades working with students across every type of learning environment, I have watched bright, capable, curious young people struggle not because they lacked ability but because their environment lacked flexibility. Students who think differently, learn at their own pace, ask too many questions, or simply need a smaller and calmer space to do their best work were consistently underserved by the options available to their families.

Carolina Collegiate Academy exists because those students deserve better. And because this community deserves an academically serious option that meets them where they are.

My Approach to Teaching

I believe that the most important thing a teacher can do is make a student feel intellectually capable and genuinely known. In a small learning environment, that is not an aspiration — it is a daily practice.

My instruction emphasizes depth over coverage, discussion over passive listening, and real investigation over memorized answers. Students in my classroom ask questions I do not always expect. That is exactly the point.

I have a particular commitment to supporting neurodivergent learners — students with ADHD, dyslexia, giftedness, anxiety, or other differences that large traditional classrooms were not designed to accommodate. A significant portion of my teaching experience has been with students who were told they were difficult before they found an environment that actually worked for them. Carolina Collegiate Academy was intentionally designed with those students in mind.