When Champion Learning’s 26-year-old founder started his company after his mother encouraged him to tutor neighborhood kids, he never dreamed he would one day be in charge of extra learning for thousands of New York City kids.
Champion’s Abraham Sultan started out at 15 years old riding his bike to assignments. Today, his tutoring company provides Supplemental Instruction Services to 4,000 Bronx kids in conjunction with the Department of Education, for which he has nothing but praise.
“The Department of Education is doing an excellent job of informing parents, increasing involvement, improving the standards of service of SES throughout school districts,” Sultan said. “They are highly technologically advanced, which enables the program to be run efficiently and successfully.”
Sultan’s company employs thousands of tutors, who go into the homes of children attending schools designated as needing improvement under No Child Left Behind laws. Sultan said that the key to his success is gathering the right people to service the pupils his agency works with. The children need extra support in Math and English/Language Arts.
“We have a database of over 30,000 tutors that have applied over the years for tutoring jobs, and obviously we have been able to be really selective regarding the tutors who come to work for us,” Sultan said.
Sultan stated that as soon as a parent chooses Champion Learning, they can monitor their child’s progress while the tutor works with the child in their own home, and someone from the company reaches out to the parent and provides updated progress reports.
Sultan said each tutor puts together an individual learning plan, and that both a pre-test and a post-test is administered to measure student progress.
“Everyone has the opportunity to speak with the tutor, and it is done one-to-one so the student really grows,” Sultan said. “Bringing professional tutoring into the homes builds the student’s confidence and gets them more motivated.”
One school principal impressed by the quality of the performance of Champion Learning is Bobby Mercedes of M.S. 390 at 1930 Andrews Avenue.
“What separates Champion from the others is that they take the time to select proper people to provide the services,” Mercedes said. “They have a good track record in hiring people, and the parents are very pleased with their performance.”
Mercedes added: “So far, Champion has kept their promises. The experience that they generate is moving kids up in levels or test scores.”
Sultan said that in many cases, a student’s grade increases 20 points in a particular subject.
