Today, we are excited to spotlight the extraordinary charter school leader Matt Tyson, CEO of Tapestry Public Charter School.
Matt Tyson never quite fit neatly into the education system.
As the oldest of four neurodiverse boys, he witnessed how inconsistent education could be. His father worked for the Boy Scouts, a role that required constant relocation. With each move came a new school and, with it, a new curriculum that didn’t match that of the next. Skills fell through the cracks simply because of geography and timing, not because of a lack of ability.
“I never learned my multiplication tables because I lived in a state that hadn’t done them yet and moved to another state that had done them already,” said Matt. “It was always tough to fit in, but that also kind of built in me the ability to just chameleon myself as needed for the circumstances.”
Those experiences implanted within Matt a bone-deep understanding that where you’re born and where you land shouldn’t determine what you learn or how far you go.
“It also solidified that outsider status for me,” Matt said. “Where you’re always kind of looking at things differently and, because of that, you’re looking at things from other people’s perspectives more than you would otherwise.”
Finding His People
By the time he found his way to the classroom as a special education teacher, Matt already knew something most educators take years to learn: kids who get written off aren’t broken, they’re just unseen.
His first students in special education carried the same low expectations and outsider status he recognized from his own childhood. He refused to see them as a category. He saw them as individuals, each one with their own timeline and their own way of getting there.
“That felt like a really good place for me to be,” Matt said of working as a special education teacher. “It was a place where I could work with a lot of kids who similarly had low expectations.”
Beginning with his first year as a teacher for DeKalb County Schools in Georgia, Matt leaned into AI and other technologies to make that kind of individualization real. Instead of serving as a shortcut, AI-powered tools became a way to meet students where they were and help them build something genuine. In fact, Matt began piloting and leveraging AI in the classroom about a dozen years ago, long before it became a mainstream topic of conversation in education.
“We have the power to help kids through this, but we’re going to have to teach them differently,” he said. “It has to be embraced, but it has to be embraced thoughtfully.”
After becoming a department chair and taking ownership of his school’s Title 1 afterschool program, the pattern was already clear: Matt wasn’t content to only help the students who were directly in front of him.
“I love teaching,” he said, “but I wanted to impact more students.”
Tapestry: A School Built for Everyone
After six years with DeKalb Schools as a teacher and instructional support specialist, Matt’s desire led him to Tapestry Public Charter School in Atlanta, which opened in 2014 and offers an inclusive, individualized learning environment that is academically engaging for both neurotypical students and those on the autism spectrum. The school was founded by families in the community who wanted something the system wasn’t offering: an authentically inclusive environment where neurodivergent students didn’t have to hide or be sorted away.
About half of Tapestry’s students have special needs, compared to about 12% in the surrounding Atlanta Public Schools district. All of them learn together in a rigorous and individualized college-prep setting, which contributes to Tapestry students consistently outperforming their peers in traditional public schools when it comes to academic growth.
Matt became Tapestry’s first assistant principal in 2016, and he assumed the role of principal/CEO in 2020. In 2023, Tapestry earned the Game Changer Award — and $25,000 for educational use — from the George Charter School Association.
“We were able to take that and go on to become Georgia Charter School of the Year,” Matt said. “We won a Building Hope National Award, we were a finalist for the ASU-GSV Venture Award.”
That recognition not only affirmed the strength of Tapestry’s inclusive model but also positioned the school as a proof point for what’s possible when equity and innovation go hand in hand.
“We’ve been able to impact a lot of change, which has been really neat,” Matt said. “Now other schools see that it can be done from our model, so we’re able to help even more people as we create these inclusive spaces.”
This success validates a belief Matt has had since he entered his first classroom: every student deserves to be known, not managed.
Lessons from Doing It the Hard Way
About five years ago, Tapestry began its replication journey. Matt and his team set their sights on a second campus in partnership with Atlanta Public Schools. The proposed charter would serve students with special needs in Atlanta Public Schools, where a vocal community of families had already been raising their hands.
More than 700 families signed on for the proposed APS school. The need was real and the demand was clear.
The system, however, was not ready. The state of Georgia hadn’t authorized a district charter in seven years. During that stretch, districts had been blanket-denying charter applications across the board. Matt and the Tapestry team repeatedly found themselves in the same “renewal, denial, appeal” cycle. You can read about Tapestry’s experience in his recent contributor column here.
Matt is philosophical about it now, but not in a way that softens the difficulty.
“Sometimes, those painful moments are there to teach you things,” he said. “By doing it the hard way, we learned how to run an efficient recruitment and enrollment campaign. We’ve been doing it under stressful conditions for a while.”
What kept him going was simpler than any strategy.
“When you meet the kids who are directly benefiting, it makes it all worthwhile,” Matt said.
When Clayton County finally accepted the second Tapestry campus, it wasn’t just a policy win. For Matt, it was the culmination of years of work by hundreds of people — board members, families, advocates, and educators — all pulling toward the same thing.
“I’m really proud of that moment,” he said.
What Charter Schools Are For
Matt has nothing but love for the charter community, and he’s clear-eyed about the isolation that can come with leading in a state that isn’t always friendly to the model.
“There is no playbook for ‘Here’s how you do things right,’ or ‘Here’s how you be a charter leader of this specific school, at this specific time, in this specific district, with this specific law that was passed last year,” Matt said. “As a charter leader, everything is always moving. There is a lot of immediacy because we are always fighting for survival, but we also have to plan for and be aware of so many longer-term, multi-year issues.”
He is very grateful for the support he has received from the charter sector, including contributions from Charter School Growth Fund and RedefineEd.
“They have given Tapestry pivotal support at times in which we really needed them to be able to take this thing — that we have proof is a great model — and help it flourish,” Matt said.
Still, Matt believes in the work with the same conviction that sent him into special education in the first place: some students fall through the cracks not because they aren’t capable, but because the system wasn’t designed with them in mind.
“When districts reduce choice for people who are already wary about their school options, it further alienates parents and families,” he said. “We keep students in the district by offering a greater number of options and innovative models.”
Matt’s focus remains on the students, particularly the ones who’ve been told that a certain timeline isn’t right for them or that the seat wasn’t created with them in mind. Matt has been that kid, and he’s spent his career making sure those kids find their way to success.