Jun 24, 2019
Winner: Evolved Education
Runner-up: Sliding Doors STEM & Dyslexia Learning Center
Founded in 2014 by Mary Miele, Evolved Education has 72 tutors, has served more than 500 students, and has completed more than 24,000 sessions. They focus on all subject areas, all test prep, executive functioning, and academic coaching.
At Evolved Education, tutors take a multi-faceted, holistic, and individualized approach to ensuring that each student learns well within their maximum learning potential. A unique framework called the Evolved Education Paradigm ensures a personal partnership between families and educators, emphasizing the whole child philosophy to help students thrive.
As the parent of a sixth grade student extolled, "Mary and the entire EEC team should be seriously congratulated on their paradigm and work with all children, especially mine. I have seen a child who was not confident in math emerge as the master of the subject. This company is very special, indeed."
Read on to learn more about what set Mary Miele and Evolved Education apart in the minds of our judges!
Why did you start your tutoring business?
Twenty years into a busy career as a Learning Specialist and Education Consultant in Manhattan’s public and private school systems, I had a vision as an educator and a parent of school-aged children that a company could exist to fill a void not provided by schools, public or private. Its goal is to provide families with reputable, full-service educational support for absolutely anything needed as they endeavor to raise children in today's nursery-through-college public and private education systems.
I founded Evolved Education in 2014 in order to professionalize the tutoring and education consulting space and provide a unique approach to supporting students in school. When we engage, inform, and empower all actors in a student’s educational life—improving educational experiences for teachers, students, families, and schools—we ensure the best possible support for all students. It is my mission to support students in learning well. Therefore, it is also my mission to support teachers in teaching well within a holistic, comprehensive approach.
Today, Evolved Education Company is every family’s school support system. Here, families can receive information, consulting, tutoring services, school placement advisement, strategies for organizing homework routines or summer studying, school application support and more.
What makes your tutoring business unique?
Evolved's educators are united by one common goal: to ensure each student learns well. Our modern approach to pedagogy allows us to customize our support and ensure its excellence. At Evolved, improving each student’s learning experience requires a multi-faceted, holistic, and individualized process. Our goal is to create a network of professionals in the education field who gather to improve teaching and learning experiences with this personalized approach.
From subject area tutoring to literacy assessment and instruction, test preparation to executive function coaching and a variety of special education services, we engage, inform, and empower all actors in a student’s educational life to ensure each student learns well within their maximum learning potential.
Because we are a full-service company, partnering with Evolved means leveraging our staff of learning specialists, tutors, education therapists, college counselors, test preparation instructors, and executive functioning coaches to customize the ideal learning solution for each and every student.
Do you use any special or notable tactics or methods when it comes to teaching students?
Our methodology involves a personal partnership between our families and educators. We use a highly effective framework called the Evolved Education Paradigm to ensure that our individual educators and consultants examine and respond to all aspects of a student’s learning experience to unlock student potential.
The Evolved Education Paradigm emphasizes the whole child philosophy and can be used to help children grow into celebrated and successful students. The Five Elements of a Student’s Evolved Education Paradigm includes Academic History, Learning Style, School Environment, Family Culture, and Social-Emotional-Physical-Academic Quotient (SEPAQ). When it comes to whole child education, all aspects of the paradigm must work together in order to ensure that each student thrives within his environment.
Our process involves learning about the student using the Evolved Education Paradigm to create an individualized tutoring program for each child that meets their specific needs within their unique environment and development. This includes constructing goals, lessons, and on-going support that consists of teaching, assessment and accountability measures. Collaboration with schools and other professionals is paramount to each program’s success.
Additionally, EEC offers a myriad of mock tests with all accommodations necessary to provide each student with the most appropriate mock testing scenario. We partner with companies such as Forum Education to provide timely, comprehensive feedback for the SAT, ACT and ISEE to support successful test preparation for each student. We administer mock testing for all major exams at our office.
What role do you think tutoring should play in education?
The way we support children must be individualized, as every child, family, and school is unique. Tutoring allows educators to match the curriculum to the individual student and figure out how to help them reach their potential from outside the classroom. Partnering with families means we can provide their students with targeted academic support while also nurturing their physical, emotional, and social well being. A 1-on-1, holistic and personalized approach can unlock a student’s overall potential.
Tell us about some of your successful outcomes for students.
Each year over 90% of our students gain placement to their best-fit schools. They improve test scores and grades. However, what is most impressive are the outcomes that improve a student’s learning experience. Students report back to us that they have learned how to be a stronger student by working with us. In addition to having writing, reading, math and study skills, our students understand how to employ self-care and access resources to overcome obstacles. They also learn how to use their strengths to overcome areas of challenge—turning challenges and lessons learned from struggle and failure into their greatest assets.
Evolved also partners with parents to support them in parenting their school-aged children, helping them to navigate the school admissions process. They learn about how to view their child holistically and how to tap into their child’s unique strengths.
Schools that partner with Evolved through our School Partners program help their students to improve test scores, learning experiences and outcomes as well as academic aptitude. We pride ourselves on meeting goals for our projects and reflect on our work to always make improvements.
Did you have any obstacles to overcome when starting your business?
Endeavoring to create Evolved Education required me to overcome many obstacles both personal and professional. The launch of Evolved came at a time when I was having my children and, as such, I have had to juggle the responsibilities of childcare and business care; the two are thankfully often very synergetic, but they can also be in conflict with each other. It is hard when I have a client who needs me at the same time when my son needs me, for instance.
Another obstacle has to do with the fact that I am an educator first and a businesswoman second, thus the process of constructing and caring for a business has been a massive learning process. I have learned to create infrastructure and systems to ensure that the business is sound and strong for all involved to benefit. This work has caused me to make mistakes and sometimes my missteps have caused me to lose clients, money, or relationships with contractors.
It’s not easy to have the responsibility of so much all of the time, but the good work that we do, the people we provide jobs for, and ultimately the learning that happens for our students is what makes it all worth it!
Congratulations to the team at Evolved Education on your accomplishment!
