Atlanta Speech School

What it reported doing in 2025

The School's 22-year-old Rollins Center seeks to extend the social justice of literacy to children far beyond our physical campus. For that purpose, the Cox Campus, with more than 420,000 members from all 50 states and 138 countries, provides training for public health providers, families, and early childhood and elementary teachers on the definitive science of constructing each and every child's deep reading brain.-Cox Campus is the only free IDA-accredited pathway to literacy reform through the science of reading. -With an unmatched 92% course completion rate, the courses of Cox Campus are consistently reported by learners (e.g. Ohio teachers 95%+) to be excellent and significantly contributing to positive changes in classroom instruction practices.-In 2024, as Cox Campus celebrated its first decade, it reached the historic milestone of $100 million in economic impact with more than 668,000 courses completed by educators at no cost to their schools or districts. By the end of the 2025-26 school year with exponential growth, a total of more than 1.4 million courses had been completed, with the value now measuring more than $210 million.-The Atlanta Speech School, the Rollins Center, and its Cox Campus are supported by preeminent national/international experts in the fields of healthy brain development, language acquisition, and literacy who comprise our National Scientific Advisory Council.Below are a few examples of how the School joins with others to implement the science demanded by the public health and moral imperative caused by four centuries of radically disparate access to the freedom of reading.As a starting point, through partnerships with Harvard's Center for the Developing Child and many others, we have built extensive Cox Campus coursework and accompanying thousands of resources for public health providers and teachers of children birth - age 5 in recognition of the need to maximize children's growth in language, executive functions, critical thinking, and empathy during this singular window of brain development.This work begins through Talk With Me Baby ("TWMB") at Grady Hospital's (the largest public hospital in the Southeast) birthing center, where Grady staff coach expecting parents and parents of newborns to become their babies' conversational partners in order for them to provide the language nutrition and connection essential for their babies' healthy early brain development. TWMB is distinguished by its gradual release model in contrast to the typical dissemination of information, encouragement, books, and other materials that effect no measurable change in daily interactions with babies or their feelings of agency. Data from an independent evaluation by Harvard Medical School's Brazelton Center demonstrate the lasting and meaningful success of this effort with 91% of parents reporting they were still using practices five years later. The evaluation shows the comprehensive nature of TWMB at the beginning of life changes parental attitudes and behaviors in a manner that remains with them. With the endorsement of key national early childhood experts, we are now funded for the objective of TWMB's becoming the national standard of care for birthing centers within the next 4 years, including recent adoption by Emory Healthcare across its system.Following passage of the Georgia Early Literacy Act in 2023, the Georgia Department of Education selected Cox Campus as the State's recommended structured literacy training program and created the Georgia Literacy Academy by integrating Cox Campus courses into Georgia Learns, the statewide learning management system. Since then, Cox Campus has become central to Georgia's literacy training infrastructure: more than 55% of Georgia districts now use Cox Campus as their primary resource for complying with structured literacy requirements. As of December 31, 2025, more than 47,000 Georgia educators were enrolled, representing educators and leaders from 167 districts/LEAs, an

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 86%; rating input score 86
• Program expense ratio: 87.7%; rating input score 88
• Fundraising efficiency: $18.1 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
  • Compensation committee: Pass
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
  • Written employment contract: Pass
  • Compensation survey or study: Missing
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 97.8%; rating input score 98; 27th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 4.6%; rating input score 42; 42nd percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 4.02; rating input score 73; 73rd percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.04; rating input score 79; 79th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 3.9%; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 5.6% per year; rating input score 100; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 5% per year; rating input score 100; 41st percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 6.2% per year; rating input score 100; 44th percentile among comparable filings