Our Founder

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Dear Nashville Families,

I have four kids. Every one of them has needed something different from school — different pacing, different support, different ways of being seen and challenged. I've spent years watching what happens when a child needs something a school can't quite give: the waiting, the meetings, the quiet worry that maybe this just isn't the right fit.

I've also spent the last several years leading the Diverse Learners Cooperative, walking into schools all over Nashville and working alongside teachers who care deeply about every student in their room. Over and over, I watched the same thing happen: teachers who knew exactly how to reach a struggling student, working inside schedules and structures that left them no room to do it consistently, for every kid, every day.

Those two experiences point at the same thing. My own kids showed me what it feels like to wait for a school to catch up to your child. My work showed me why that wait keeps happening in the first place.

Edge Academy starts from a different assumption: that learning differently is the norm, not the exception, and a school can plan for that from the very beginning — in how the day is scheduled, how staff are assigned, how classrooms are set up — instead of scrambling to adjust once a student struggles.

This is personal for me. It's also something I think every family in Nashville deserves, regardless of what they can afford or how hard they have to fight for it. I've seen what it looks like when kids get what they need. I've also seen what it costs them when they don't.

Welcome to Edge Academy. I'm glad you're here.

Autographed signature of the founder, Brooke Allen

Founder, Edge Academy

Edge Founder Facts

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  • Founding Executive Director, Diverse Learners Cooperative, a nonprofit supporting schools serving diverse learners grown to $1.5M+, reaching 2,000+ educators through 100+ school partnerships

  • Special education teacher and support leader, including on the founding team at Valor Collegiate Academies

  • M.Ed. & B.S., Special Education, English Learner, and Elementary Education, Vanderbilt University

  • TN Charter Center "Advocate of the Year"; active conference presenter, including at the National Charter Schools Conference and Council for Exceptional Children

  • Nashville Incubator Fellow, building toward a Fall 2028 launch

Edge Academy pulls together everything Brooke has learned as a special educator, a nonprofit leader, and a parent of four into a school built for every learner to belong and thrive. See how that comes to life.

Edge's Approach