Our journey

DeGrio Global Learning Academy was not born from theory alone, but from lived educational experience across generations, communities, classrooms, and advocacy work spanning more than four decades.

As a gifted student raised within a Title I educational environment and benefiting from school integration and busing programs, DGLA’s founder experienced firsthand both the opportunities and the inequities that existed within public education systems. Those early experiences created a lifelong awareness of how gifted learners, underserved students, emotionally struggling children, and students with nontraditional learning needs are often overlooked despite their potential.

That understanding deepened through over 43 years of professional work in behavioral health, special education, inclusion support, educational advocacy, teacher mentoring, and family-centered intervention — while simultaneously navigating the realities of raising gifted children within the same systems.

Through decades of service in Title I schools across rural, suburban, urban settings, one truth became consistently clear: children thrive when they are recognized as whole human beings first — not simply labels, test scores, placements, or behavioral categories.

DeGrio Global Learning Academy was ultimately built from that conviction and the resulting curriculum :
that individualized learning, emotional support, creativity, structure, advocacy, relationship-building, and academic excellence should work together — not separately.

DGLA exists to help learners feel seen by all teachers in all disciplines. No division, no yours and mine but collectively and individually supported, challenged, and prepared for life beyond the classroom while honoring the diverse ways children grow, process, create, communicate, and succeed..