We recently connected with Dr Annise Mabry and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Dr Annise thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

They arrive in my office battered, broken, and defeated. They see me as another person in the educational system who is just going to beat them down again. I hear it in their voices when I say, “tell me what you plan to do once you get your diploma?” They are so broken sometimes that they’ve stopped dreaming.
I didn’t start this homeschool journey because I wanted to. I did it because this was the only tool that I had to save my own children.
I want to be clear that I’m not anti-public education. But you know what. I am against everything that public education allows to happen in those classrooms. I am against those academic leaders who didn’t earn their positions but were simply networked into those positions. Not because they were the best candidates but because they were the best networked. I used to say that I forgave the failures of leadership for how they allowed my daughter to be broken. That’s a lie. I didn’t forgive them and I never will.
Every time my daughter had a panic attack in a classroom, I hated those leaders even more.
There are 866,000 adults in Georgia without a high school diploma. Many of them are sex trafficking survivors, homeless LGBTQ youth, former foster care youth, and youth with untreated and undiagnosed mental illnesses. Regardless of who they are, one thing they have in common is that they are trapped inside a box—of trying to find employment without a high school diploma.
My role in their story is small—I simply built a program that provided them with a pathway to become a high school graduate. They made the choice to break the box.
They are the box breakers and my mission is simple–to give my students the tools to tell their story. Some of their stories will make you laugh and some will make you cry. Some will make you question not only why no one intervened to help.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I always believed in the educational system and I always believed that the system would work. When I had children, I taught my children to “Work within the system first. Follow the chain of command. You never throw the first punch.” Little did I know that from the time I had taught that class in 1999 until my daughter was in the 6th grade in 2010 that the educational landscape had changed. Ten years is a long time. Ten years in education with technology is an entire generation. My daughter was a child who loved learning. She was reading chapter books in Kindergarten and by the 5th grade, she was reading and comprehending at the college level. But my daughter never “tested” into the gifted program. Each year she was tested and each year she would always miss entrance into the program by one or two points. This is the same child who entered college at 15; and, when she graduated from high school, she graduated as a sophomore in college. Had I allowed my child to believe what the public school system was telling her, she would have internalized the message that she wasn’t smart enough to even go after the opportunity to become a dual enrollment student let alone obtain 60 college credits by her 17th birthday.
Educational bias is real—I say this because I saw it as a teacher and experienced it as a parent. All of the children wanted to be in the gifted program. Each grade level had 10 slots for a total of 50 per school. Of those 50 students, less than 10% were children of color and even fewer were children who were identified as economically disadvantaged (low income)—even though the school was a Title 1 school. For a school to receive a Title 1 status, at least 40% of the students must be identified as low income. In public education, the opportunity to become a Title 1 school is the equivalent of hitting the state and federal government lottery. The thought process used to justify the funding increase to Title 1 schools is that the students attending these schools need more support in the classroom (so Title 1 funds can be used to hire additional teachers or to invest in outside tutoring resources). In one Georgia county, the desire to keep certain schools as Title 1 schools was so strong that during one redistricting session, the redistricting committee sat down with student addresses and made sure that drawing the line didn’t remove that magic number of 40%. In some areas, this meant splitting a community right down the middle of the street. Houses on the same street in the same neighborhood went to two different elementary schools just to maintain first the 40% balance then to ensure the racial balance.
The bias that my son experienced as young black male with a learning disability. I am also aware of the educational privilege that my children received simply because of our address, zip code, and those two letters in front of my name. There is a seldom discussed housing bias in education—parents who move into certain neighborhoods to “eliminate” undesirable elements in the classroom. These same parents become very upset when apartments or condos are built in these communities because they see these families as a transient population who come into a neighborhood to take advantage of the resources—especially the educational resources without putting back into the community.
For years, my daughter begged me to homeschool her; and, every year, I found a reason of why it wasn’t a good idea. “I have to work full-time; and, you are too young to manage the work alone.” “I don’t have time to do all those homeschool fieldtrips.” “You will miss out on the socialization of school.” The truth was the thought of being 100% responsible for my daughter’s education terrified me—and I had a PhD in K-12 Teaching and Learning! That’s how conditioned I had become in believing that public education at the hands of complete strangers was a better option than me teaching my own child. The irony was that my own daughter believed more in me and my ability to homeschool her than I believed in myself. My reluctance to homeschool my daughter allowed her the victim of what was called at the time “one of the most extreme cases” of bullying ever experienced in our county. Now today, my daughter is a senior in college but I must confess I still carry some of the guilt that my reluctance to provide her with a safe learning environment contributed to the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder that she still seeks treatment for to this day.
The reality is I had just been promoted to Dean of Graduate Studies and I was at the pinnacle of my career with the university. I was also a new resident in a new county without the educational network of my prior county. The conditions made for a perfect storm. When my daughter finally shared with me that she was being bullied, I sat down with her and we worked out a plan to make the administration at her school aware.
In an ideal world, once the administration became aware, they would have taken steps protect my daughter and to correct the behaviors of the bullies. Sadly, that didn’t happen. The bullies got bolder—they began taunting her on social media so I said, “Just don’t use social media.” In 2009, social media was very new. Facebook had only removed the restrictions that you had to be a college student to have an account in 2006; the iPhone was only two years old. What I didn’t understand at that time was social media was this generation’s socialization. Advising my daughter to simply stay away from social media was the wrong approach—why should my child be restricted to the only outlet that she had to connect with all of her friends from our old home because the children in this new area were out of control? My daughter’s spirit was broken. She became angry at everything and everyone. Simple conversations of civil disagreements became major acts of aggression. What I also didn’t realize at the time was my daughter’s rage from being bullied was transforming everyone in the house. We were all the victims of these middle school bullies. The tipping point came when my daughter—who had never been in trouble in her life—was suspended three times in a 30-day period. My background training saw the escalation of her anger with each suspension—and the truth was I was angry too. I had done everything that as an educator and as a law enforcement official I was trained to do but it wasn’t enough to save my own child.
When I asked for the opportunity to use the hospital homebound services for the remaining 60 days of the school year, I was told “Hospital homebound services are for medically fragile children only. I cannot waste those resources on a child that is not medically fragile.”
I couldn’t think of a child more medically fragile than one who had endured relentless bullying by students and a failure to receive a safe learning environment from the adults. My daughter was traumatized; she still carries those emotional scars to this day. My greatest regret is I didn’t withdraw her sooner to start the homeschool process.
Remember, I’m an educator by training and in all of my graduate Education courses, we were taught that since homeschooling was so unregulated that these children frequently suffered academically when they would return to public school. But as I faced the possibility of my daughter taking her own life from the bullying or her being academically underprepared for college—I decided to take my chances in spite of everything that formal education had taught me about homeschooling.
I didn’t have to struggle with my decision for long of how to homeschool and balance working full time because all of the stress of my daughter’s situation combined with my own stress of working 60 plus hours per week as the Dean of Graduate Studies caused my body to shut down and I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease called Chronic Inflammatory Demylinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP) but my body wasn’t responding to any of the conventional treatments. My neurologist suspected I had a genetic neurological condition but the test that we needed was still in a medical trial phase. Literally everything in me and around me was screaming for something to change. For the first time, I had no choice but to listen.
Every 26 seconds, 7,000 students drop out of high school in the United States. In 2013, 865,704 of Georgians age 18-64 do not have a high school diploma or a GED. Most parents also think that school ends at the age of 18 and anyone over 18 who doesn’t finish school must attend adult literacy programs. Few people ever read the homeschool laws of their state because they never really considered homeschooling. You can still homeschool your child beyond the age of 18 and you can issue a homeschool high school diploma to your child at any age because (1) your child will always be your child regardless of the age; and, (2) as a homeschool parent, you determine your curriculum. Some parents decide that their curriculum is a path to trade certifications such as obtaining a certification as a plumber, electrician, or a multimedia producer. This is the beauty of the freedom of homeschool—parents determine the course.
As my daughter was preparing for graduation, I was celebrating not only having a high school graduate but also that I had cracked the code of how to use the homeschool laws to issue a legitimate high school diploma! I was so excited I wanted to celebrate with everyone in my neighborhood. A few weeks after my daughter’s graduation, I found myself on my neighbor’s deck with a glass of wine. Our daughters were the same age so I naturally assumed that they had both graduated and had post high school plans.
I was not prepared when my neighbor’s daughter shared with me that the bullying at the high school was too much and she had dropped out during the end of her 11th grade year. It was a sucker punch to the gut and I remember struggling to swallow the lump in my throat. But I’m a planner and I had a background in adult literacy. I asked my neighbor’s daughter if she would be open to getting her GED if I would help her study. She said sure. I went home that night and began an internet search that would ultimately change my life.
What I didn’t know at the time was the GED as I knew it no longer existed. It was no longer a work-place focused GED but in 2014, it was redesigned to be a common core focused GED. Common Core was a good concept—the idea was simple—that no matter where a child would go in the United States, every state would teach the same grade level material. In concept, it makes sense. This is a fitting example of a concept that got lost in implementation. Now the GED had been redesigned to align with Common Core Standards and the number of people who were passing all five sections of the GED on the first attempt was only 20%. I’m not a math major but that meant 80% of GED test takers were failing one or more sections; and, I knew from my prior experience as a GED literacy instructor that those students were not going to return to retest.
I remember thinking—this would be so much easier if high schools used the same strategy that colleges used by allowing students who decide to drop out the ability to return. But unlike college, high schools operate like those Exit Only exits on the interstate—students get the opportunity to exit but there is no path to return. Until 2014, 32 states allowed students to drop out of school at the age of 16; but, no one was capturing the data on dropouts until these students turned 18. I realized that those two years were an educational sweet spot. If I could somehow reach the students after they dropped out and provide them with an alternative path to a diploma.
When I say that I did a deep research dive into the GED—I searched for everything that I could find related to the GED. Somehow I ended up on an internet search about employability after the GED and that was when I found a forum of recent GED graduates who were sharing their experiences and employment challenges of finding a job with only a GED. It was in this forum that I learned a GED graduate could not enter the military or apply for certain jobs that were nationally based. Employment applications were no longer asking if applicants had a high school diploma or GED—the applications now asked “Are you a high school graduate”. Which meant that someone with a GED who answered honestly had to say “NO” and this response was an automatic disqualifier. Even more shocking was the military would no longer accept a GED graduate—GED graduates who wanted to enter the military were required to complete at least one semester of college classes. It takes at least one semester to get into college and then one semester to complete the classes—that’s a full year; and, by that time the GED graduate would have lost interest in joining the military.
I couldn’t set my neighbor’s daughter up for a life of limited opportunities and closed doors. So, I thought—what about a homeschool high school diploma. Even though she had dropped out of school there wasn’t an age limit for homeschool and as long as the diploma was issued by the parent, it was legal.
It sounded too easy to be logical so I became a member of the Homeschool Legal Defense Fund so that I could have access to a network of attorneys who devoted their entire careers to fighting for homeschool families and interpreting homeschool law. My first question to the HSLDA attorney was “Am I understanding the GA homeschool law correctly—there is no age limit for a parent to issue a homeschool diploma to a child?” The attorney replied “You are correct.” In my head, a green light went off. I would use the Georgia homeschool laws to help my neighbor issue her daughter a high school diploma.
So I started to think of the curriculum and the transcript process. How was I going to know where to start? I had struggled with finding a good curriculum fit for my own children—how was I going to do this with someone else’s child who I knew only in passing. I had no idea of her academic strengths or weaknesses. I didn’t know what she wanted to do after graduation—and neither did she because she never dreamed being a high school graduate was a possibility. My mind was spinning. I needed someone who wasn’t an educator or academician to help me figure out this part of the puzzle—what type of curriculum will work best for someone who has dropped out of school?
I needed to be able to purchase curriculum; but, I already knew that the provider I wanted to work with would only sell their curriculum to school districts and nonprofit organizations.

I wasn’t a school district or a nonprofit organization but I was a mom who understood a what it meant to have a child in crisis. So I reached out to my friend who was an attorney and asked for help establishing my nonprofit organization. Six months later, The Dr. Annise Mabry Foundation was formed and I purchased my first set of 25 online academic licenses.

My neighbor’s daughter graduated with her high school diploma one month before I received my nonprofit status; and, we held her graduation ceremony in the living room. We went all out for her graduation—complete with me in my full doctoral regalia to award her diploma.
It was at her graduation that her cousin asked me if I could help her as well because she had dropped out of school in the 10th grade. I told her I could but I was working on finding a curriculum that would be good fit. I asked her to give me a few days and I would contact her.
After working with my neighbor’s daughter, I knew what I wanted in a curriculum—I wanted a curriculum that would provide a pre-assessment and that was online. I also needed a curriculum that would automatically move the student up or down so that the student never felt overwhelmed and would always master the content. But to truly test a curriculum, I needed to use a student who was not a recent dropout. So I reached out to my sister-in-law Helen. Helen had dropped out of school before she reached high school and for years, she had talked about getting her high school diploma. She was the perfect curriculum tester.
When I told Helen I wanted to build an alternative path to a high school diploma by using the homeschool laws to empower the parents to issue their own diploma, Helen gave me all the confirmation that I needed. I said “I think it can work Helen” and she replied “I will help you to test it to make sure it works.”
For what felt like months, I would send Helen links to online curriculum that I thought were brilliant and she would send them back to me with a note “This won’t work.” Finally, one day she said “You are making the same mistake all those other programs made. You are trying to build this like an educator. Don’t do this program like an educator. Think about all of the things that stop people from getting an education.”

Helen’s advice became my lighthouse for every decision that I made regarding how my program operated. Trauma informed academic programs were nonexistent in 2015 but I knew the only way this program could work was if I looked at my students through a trauma informed lens. Like Helen said “think about all of the things that stop people from getting an education”.

Today, The Dr. Annise Mabry Foundation operates two key programs–Tiers Free Academy Homeschool Cooperative and the SW GA Community Policing Resource Center. Since 2015, Tiers Free Academy Homeschool Cooperative has transformed 337 high school dropouts into high school graduates. 81% of our graduates are employed full time in jobs earning at least $20 per hour; and, 46% are enrolled in college.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

One of the hardest challenges of operating a new nonprofit organization is finding funding. People think that as soon as you receive the 501c3 approval from the IRS that you are going to be showered in grant funding. New nonprofit organizations hire grant writers in an attempt to increase their odds at winning a grant but the reality is having a grant writer doesn’t increase your odds. Your ability to tell your story, articulate your program goals, demonstrate your program impact, and provide financial transparency to funders by having a CPA to certify your yearly financials. I used my tax refund for the initial capital my nonprofit needed to pay all of the document filing fees and to purchase the curriculum.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

As an out African American Lesbian, the fact that I am alive is a story of resilience itself. There was a time when just saying those words cost me my home. What most people don’t know about me is when I came out of the closet, I was asked to leave my sister’s home. I was homeless. I wasn’t even 18 years old and all I had was my car with all of my clothes in the trunk. So when I talk to students entering my program I always say “You see me now with two PhDs but in 1992, I was homeless.” A 2012 study from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors found that the revenues of Black-led organizations are, on average, 24 percent smaller than those of their white-led counterparts. And organizations led by Black women consistently receive less funding than those led by Black men or white women. The pandemic of 2020 brought heightened mainstream awareness but in 2022, that awareness has almost disappeared.
Like I said, the fact that I am operating a nonprofit organization and now receiving grant funding from several foundations is a story of resilience in itself.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.drannisemabry.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drannisemabryfoundation/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrAnniseMabryFoundation
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drannisemabry/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrAnniseMabry
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe_0Ua9ins9wWj_-CXaC_3w
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drannisemabryfoundation

Image Credits
Image Credits: SMW Creations, Mystie Medlin Photography and Crown Cultivation Media