Real results. Real students. A model that outperformed California.
While much of the nation debates how to redesign education for the future, one California public school quietly did it. Elite Academic Academy Lucerne used identity, belonging, and modern instructional design to drive growth four to six times faster than the state average. These results offer a blueprint for innovation that works.
Meghan K. Freeman Announces Next Chapter: From Founding Elite Academic Academy to Launching Illuminate XR’s Global Learning Mission
Education leader Meghan Freeman shifts from founding Elite Academic Academy to launching Illuminate XR , a bold, human-centered AI and immersive learning venture.
Meghan K. Freeman: From My Living Room to the National Stage
What began in Ms. Meghan Freeman’s living room with a single vision to do education differently has grown into a nationally recognized story of innovation and heart. As Elite Academic Academy prepares to be featured on All Access with Andy Garcia this December, I’m reflecting on the journey that turned humble beginnings into a movement redefining how students learn, connect, and thrive.
Leading When Everything Feels Impossible
Leading a school today can feel impossible. I have been there. Years ago, I imagined a public school with no walls and made it real. The same lessons that helped me lead then are the ones that matter most now.
Listening to the Sound of Courage in a Changing World
In a world where education is changing faster than ever, true leadership begins with courage. After twenty five years in public education, Meghan Freeman shares how courage shaped her journey from school founder to Co-CEO of Illuminate XR. This reflection explores what it means to lead with humanity, reimagine learning through innovation, and create immersive experiences that prepare students for the world they live in today.
Discover why the future of learning belongs to those willing to evolve, innovate, and lead with heart.
The Arena
Meghan Freeman, M.Ed., founder of Elite Academic Academy, shares her journey of courage, compassion, and innovation in public education. Rooted in the belief that every student deserves to be seen and supported, Freeman reimagined what learning can be through personalized, non-classroom-based education. Under her leadership, Elite achieved a 98% teacher retention rate, California Distinguished School recognition, WASC accreditation, and Marzano High Reliability Schools Levels 1 & 2 certification.
Freeman’s story—beginning with a simple act of kindness at a lunch table—underscores her lifelong mission: to stand with the misunderstood, lead with truth, and build schools where students and educators thrive.
Personalized Learning Is Not a Trend — It’s the Future
Personalized learning is not a program or a slogan. It is a system built around people. At Elite Academic Academy, where I serve as Co Founder and former CEO, we proved it can be real, measurable, and scalable. In one year, English Language Arts proficiency rose 8 percent and Math climbed 14 percent, even as enrollment grew by 35 percent.
Through innovation, courageous leadership, and programs like Elite X, we built a culture that empowers teachers, centers students, and delivers results.
When schools trust teachers, personalize learning, and lead with integrity, everyone wins.
I shared more about this journey and how it can be replicated in my latest blog. I invite you to read it and join the conversation about the future of learning. Personalized learning is not a trend. It is the future.
Love In Action
Today at my daughter’s soccer game I witnessed Carl and Ellie from UP come to life. A husband cared for his wife with late-stage dementia with such tenderness and patience while cheering for their granddaughter on the field. It was love in its purest form.
It reminded me that true leadership, like true love, is not about grand gestures or titles. It is about showing up, serving with patience, and putting people first.
Life really is beautiful when we pause to notice.
Through the Glass Clearly: Finally Seeing Metacognition
The other day my grandson pressed his face to the glass, eager to see what was beyond. The picture makes me smile every time, yet it also makes me think. Education has been doing the opposite for far too long. We have been staring at what is inside the frame: test scores, pacing charts, and benchmarks. What we should be looking at is much bigger. It is metacognition, the simple but powerful act of teaching students how to think about their own thinking.
AI vs. Time: Who’s Really Winning in Education?
He wasn’t falling behind because he couldn’t keep up. He just needed space. Space to think. Space to breathe. Space to learn in a way that actually made sense to him. When his mom realized she could restructure his day, she looked at me through tears and said, “It feels like I’m getting my son back.” That moment stayed with me. And now, with AI showing up in our homes and classrooms, I keep wondering. What are we doing with the time it gives us? Are we using it to bring our kids back to themselves, or are we pushing them further away?
Born To Leap
Some people follow the expected path. I never have. From jumping straight from the classroom into a principal role during the recession to leaving a secure job to start my own school to now building a global edtech startup, my life has been a series of leaps. Not all were easy, but each was worth it. Along the way I discovered my purpose: creating spaces where others can be seen, valued, and inspired to dream bigger. As my mom likes to say, some of us are just born to leap.
What If the Next Steve Jobs Is Sitting in the Back of the Classroom?
We often miss the quiet ones, the students who don’t raise their hands, who challenge norms in subtle ways, who don’t fit the school version of “successful.” Yet, they’re often the ones with the greatest potential. This piece is a call to reimagine education so it works for the thinkers, the questioners, the ones sitting silently in the back with world-changing ideas.
Soft Skills Are the New Power Tools (And AI Can’t Touch Them Yet)
As AI tools like Gronk 4 push the boundaries of what machines can do, schools have to ask a bigger question. Are we preparing students just to keep up, or to lead and think for themselves in a world full of uncertainty? When I was leading a California Distinguished School, we made soft skills the foundation. Curiosity, collaboration, critical thinking, and metacognition were not side notes. They were the core. Our teachers built their own framework to measure growth in these areas, and over time, everything started to shift. Students took more ownership of their learning. Teachers leaned into empathy and inquiry. That is where the real transformation happened.