A transformative journey from 19 years in public school teaching to founding AchieveThree, an educational consulting company. Discover how faith, resilience, and a leap of faith led to entrepreneurship and personal fulfillment.
Her Story
About Kelly
Kelly Addeo is an educational consultant and founder of Achieve 3. With over 21 years in the field, she began her career in the public school system for 19 years before taking a leave of absence. She then served as program manager at a micro-school in Boca Raton for two years, overseeing operations and teaching multi-age students under the homeschool umbrella. This experience deepened her appreciation for the flexibility of homeschooling. Drawing on her bachelor's degree in education and certifications in Pennsylvania and Florida, she launched her consulting business to support K-8 homeschool families with curriculum, evaluations, and personalized academic guidance. She attributes her success to authenticity, relationship building, and listening to families.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Kelly
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to being authentic and listening to families. I'm a huge relationship builder, whether it be with students or parents, just to be able to gain that trust with the families.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Find something that you're passionate about. Don't settle for a job. Work hard but do something that you're passionate about where you don't feel that you're actually working. Don't put yourself in a box. Explore all your options, learn as much as you can, be open to advice and critiquing, take the leap of faith, and don't let fear keep you where you are if you aren't happy.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge is starting from the ground up, launching the business, and getting credibility with people trusting me to work with their children and families. But that's also the biggest opportunity because I'm very good at building relationships, and with social media platforms I'm very authentic so people reach out feeling like they've known me.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Family is number one. Surrounding yourself with positive people who you can learn from. Growing and challenging myself and learning. As a consultant, thinking of myself as the parents' educational partner or go-to right-hand person.
Her Content Hub
Articles by Kelly
It's Never Too Late to Start Over
Why it's Important to Take that Leap
Growing up, I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. I would teach my stuffed animals, write on the chalkboard my parents got me for Christmas, and get lost for hours just pretending to be a teacher.
Fast forward to college, I got my bachelor's degree in education and thought, this is exactly what I was going to do for the rest of my life. Well, after 19 years in the public school system, I was burnt out, overworked, underpaid, underappreciated, and was ready to move on. It felt like when I finally took my leave of absence, I was losing my identity because that is all I ever did and knew. I wanted to get out of teaching altogether. I needed to make more money because my HOA went up over $900, and besides being burnt out, I could not afford to survive in South Florida on my teaching salary.
So, with having faith in God and praying that He would lead me to something better, I took a leave of absence and took a leap of faith. The crazy thing was, I had no plan. I prayed, and I just knew something was going to come out of this. After about a month into summer, I saw a job on a job post forum for a Program Manager of a microschool. (I had no clue what a microschool was.) After I read the job description, I remember telling my mom that this job was mine. I had zero doubt that I wasn't going to land this job. I truly manifested it. Well, I landed the interview, connected with the founder right away, and got the job!
Everything about this school's vision and mission was exactly what I was looking for. To be able to actually teach, and not to a test, was music to my ears. We were a real-world, hands-on, entrepreneurship-based school. We would be outside of the schoolhouse often, learning through field trips, exploring, etc. The school was made up of students from 2nd–7th grade. I will say, I did have to unlearn a lot after being programmed for 19 years in public school, but I loved it. I had never worked so hard, so many hours, and I put my blood, sweat, and tears into that school. I had a lot of responsibility, and I took pride in making sure that the school ran smoothly and that we would even get enrollment up for the next year.
Well, on the last day of school, the founder called me and told me she was moving, and that the school was shutting down, and that was it. Needless to say, I was devastated. It felt like I was mourning a death when I found this out. After 2 years of honestly becoming a workaholic for my boss and wanting this school to do so well, it was taken away from me in a 15-minute phone call. Funny thing is, a week before that, I put my resignation letter into Broward County Public Schools. Now, could I have gone back to public school? Yep. But since I resigned the week before, if I would have gone back, I would start out as a first-year teacher and would lose my 19 years of teaching experience, and honestly, I didn't want to do that. I felt that I had learned so much from working as a Program Manager and I had a lot to offer people rather than just be a classroom teacher.
I will say that this time around, I didn't have much faith. I knew I didn't want to go back into teaching, but I didn't have as much faith as I did before. I didn't think I would land a job this time around, and to be honest, it took a toll on me. It took a toll on my faith in people and my confidence. After that, I said to myself, I won't work for someone again. I am going to rebuild AchieveThree into something where I can work for myself, while helping people at the same time, and I don't have to answer to anyone. I have always had a very good work ethic, so why in the world would I waste that to try to build someone else's business and not my own?
And that is how AchieveThree came about. Well, kind of. While I was a teacher, I did do some health coaching on the side with a company, so I had my own LLC, which was AchieveThree. Once I got the job as the Program Manager, all of my time went into that job, and I stopped doing the coaching, but I kept my business name open because you just never know.
So now, instead of AchieveThree being a health coaching company, it is an educational consulting company.
AchieveThree: Education → Enrichment → Empowerment.
I work with families who are new to homeschooling and help guide and navigate them through the process. I have monthly membership fees (3 different tiers), along with various à la carte services, from assisting families with scholarships, tutoring, pacing guides for children, helping parents build schedules, plus much more.
See, the thing about my story is this: Never in a million years would I ever think that I would be building my own business, working remotely, and not actually teaching children. But I will say, the rewards of helping families take stress off their plate is something I truly love to do. At the end of the day, whether it be me teaching or assisting families, my passion is to always help. I help kids learn and help parents navigate something that is new to them. I believe that adding value is key for a successful business, and that is what I am doing, and knowing that parents trust me enough to hire me honestly is extremely humbling.
I sometimes still can't believe that at my age, I am building my own business and rebranding AchieveThree, but it's happening, and I am forever grateful for everything that has led me to this. That is why I say it's never too late. I know it is easier said than done, but one thing that really made me go all in with AchieveThree was the toll my body was taking because of stress. When I was the Program Manager of that microschool, I was extremely stressed out. I lived, ate, and breathed that school, and it affected my health. Am I grateful for it? Of course. Would I change taking that position? No. But I would change the amount of time that I dedicated to that job. I also learned that nothing is more important than your health, both physically and mentally, and that is why, at 44, I decided to start over, be my own boss, and put all of the hard work I am putting into this because it's mine, and I get to help people along the way. It doesn't even feel like work to me, and that is the feeling I have always wanted to have when it came to a job.
If I can give you any advice, even though you may be scared, if you are not happy, your health is being affected, or you are just miserable where you are, you are not stuck. And I am not just referring to a job; this goes for everything. Everything in your life that happens, you have control over. Your job, your living situation, your relationships. You do not have to be stuck. You may feel stuck, but to be honest, you have complete control over all of it.
Remember that. You're never too old to start over and go after what you truly want out of life.
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