Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I recently visited our site at Gwinnett County Public Schools, where I was shown around the campus by a graduation candidate who told me her story. She experienced nearly paralyzing anxiety at her former school to the point that she was struggling to get out of bed in the mornings. After her parents encouraged her to enroll with Gwinnett County Acceleration Academies (GCAA) for three months just to try it out, she decided to stay at GCAA to finish out her schooling. She told me that for the first month and a half, she wasn’t able to do more than get to campus and immediately retreat to one of the low-stimulus rooms. Little by little, she began to feel safer in the academy.

I visited just a few months after she began. She was thriving in her studies and giving an academy tour to a stranger, an adult with an intimidating job and a leadership role in her school. She was able to communicate, to advocate for herself and for what she needed to become an active and contributing member of her community.

This is a lesson that is relearned and reinforced every time a graduation candidate tells me of the challenges they’ve had to overcome. Their struggles are often deeply personal and it is a rare and special privilege to support them while they learn and begin to see a future for themselves and the people around them….Read the rest of Kelli Campbell’s interview with Authority Magazine here.