Elon University has appointed a retired, veteran educator to serve as the inaugural director of business and school operations for the Roberts Academy for students with dyslexia, which is scheduled to open this fall.
Tracy Roof, a former teacher and elementary school principal who retired from Guilford County schools in 2025, will join the acting director of the Roberts Academy, Alicia Tate, as a founding administrator for the private elementary school, Elon Univeristy officials announced Friday.
During the last 15 years of her 30-year career in K-12 public education, Roof served as an elementary and a middle school principal and led efforts to improve student outcomes and school performance. She has also taught math, science, and social studies for 12 years and worked as a curriculum facilitator for six years, Elon University officials said.
The Roberts Academy will be the state’s first university-based, all-day private elementary school for children with dyslexia when it opens in a temporary location at Trollinger House on the Elon University campus this August, university officials said earlier this spring.
The private elementary school will initially open for third- and fourth-grade students with dyslexia this fall. Roberts Academy will add grades one through six when a new facility opens for the 2028-29 school year on East Haggard Avenue in Elon, based on plans previously outlined during a press conference on the university campus.
Class sizes in the Roberts Academy at Elon University will be capped at a maximum of 15 students.
The newly-established private elementary school will base its instruction on the “Orton-Gillingham Approach,” which is described as the “gold standard” for teaching students with dyslexia and uses “a multisensory, structured, sequential, diagnostic, and prescriptive” tool for teaching dyslexic students who struggle with reading, writing, and spelling, according to the Orton-Gillingham Academy in Amenia, New York.
“Elon prepares students to be active participants, to connect knowledge with action, to see learning as a partnership,” Elon University President Dr. Connie Book said when she announced the “visionary investment” to establish the Roberts Academy on November 6, 2025. “That is exactly what children with dyslexia need. Not just intervention but engagement. Not just accommodation, but empowerment. Not just support, but belief.”
Throughout her career, Roof has worked with students and families to develop Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) to ensure that students with special needs and disabilities receive support that is critical to their success in school and also volunteers in the community to support students with special needs.
Hal and Marjorie Roberts of Lakeland, Florida donated the funding to establish the Roberts Academy at Elon University after initially discussing their proposal with university officials in the summer of 2025.
The Roberts couple opened the first of their “Roberts Academy network” of private schools for elementary school students with dyslexia at Florida Southern College, in Lakeland, Florida in 2010; it was expanded to serve dyslexic middle school students in 2020, according to the college in Florida.
The couple funded additional endowments to launch a Roberts Academy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee and at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, both of which opened in the fall of 2024.
An endowment will fund the Roberts Academy at Elon University in perpetuity and will also fund the creation of the Roberts Center for Dyslexia and Engaged Learning in Elon University’s School of Education, according to university officials.
Elon University began accepting applications for enrollment in the Roberts Academy earlier this year and plans to provide information about tuition, financial aid, and scholarships closer to the opening date in August.
