Built by a family who lives it.
I'm Carlos. Courtney and I did not build Forge Learning Academy from an office. We built it from our kitchen table, surrounded by our own kids.
We met as teenagers with almost nothing. We grew up in poverty, became parents while we were still in high school, and decided right then that our children would have more than we did.
In 2016 I joined the Air Force to give us a real start. I served five and a half years as an electrician until an injury on active duty led to my medical retirement in 2021. From there we bet on ourselves, building a real estate investment company and a business consulting company here in Florida. When the world changed after Covid, we made the call to bring our kids home for good.
Today we are raising five children. We homeschool four of them, in grades 9, 6, 3, and kindergarten, with our one year old coming up right behind them. I am months from finishing my bachelor of science in finance, because we believe in modeling the work we ask of our kids.
Everything in Forge Learning Academy comes from our real life. The trades, because I built a career with my hands. The financial literacy, because we clawed our way out of poverty and learned money the hard way. The character, because that is what carried us. This is the tool we wished existed, and Courtney shapes it every day from the reality of teaching our own children.