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As you may have guessed this is my picture 10 years ago when I looked younger (and handsome?!). These days my clothes have grown smaller or maybe I have grown horizontally while my kids are growing vertically.
Background
Close to 4 years ago Vignesh and I started Parainama Academy, with a dream to provide a platform for everyone to add new talents to their talent stack. We wanted every human to have the opportunity to learn something new at every phase of life.
We wanted Parinama Academy to be the one place where you can teach anything you are passionate about, learn anything (that is legal and fun for you ) . Our mission was to train, compete and win. We morphed to a newer mission - learn, create and compete including creation aspect and kicking winning aspect.
Courses
We expanded from teaching chess in libraries to getting , got approved by Round Rock ISD (RRISD) and Leander ISD and chose to teach in 17 schools after school programs and run various full and half-day camps in collaboration with RRISD, we ran our own summer camps in our 2 centers in cedar park and previously in Austin, we started teaching Singapore math, got into spelling bee and geo bee courses, science bee, brain bee, history bee, got approved by Math Olympiad (MOEMS) and conducted Math olympiad courses, public speaking, debate, science, teaching Python, Raspberry Pi, Scratch programming and move upward to SAT prep. We worked with kids to get ready for TAG and have a 90% success rate, our kids who went to chess tournaments bring cups and medals back all the time, we started teaching Duke TIP SAT prep with kids scoring high scores for their grades. We opened up tutoring and private 1x1 classes alongside group classes while keeping our teacher to student 1:6. We expanded and later closed our centers in Plano. We published our book and workbooks in amazon.
Technology and Online
3 years we pioneered teaching online first for AWS Cloud then chess for kids, then spelling bee, geo bee, math classes , Salesforce, Data Science, and machine learning. We got experience teaching little kids ages 5-6 all the way to older folks 40-50 (really is 40 the new 60?). We gave a few of our courses including chess, spelling bee, Rubik's cube and Cooking in Teachable for FREE for the world!
Hybrid
We got approved by IXL as a partner, got into partnership with checked, got approved by Microsoft and Google Classroom as an education provider (hence the access to Google classroom). We are approved as an app developer for the Apple app store and Gooogle Play store. Our team pushed for the adoption of technology inside and outside the classroom and yes we got a lot of push back from parents in the beginning. We felt strongly technology is a tool and everyone including kids should know how to use this amazing gift to acquire more knowledge.
Jr. Parinama and its comparison to Kumon, Eye Level, Code Ninja, Mathnesium, Best Brains and Best in class
We see competition now picking up to use technology. We are glad they do it now. We loved to lead the way and lets old giants take their own time to catch up to the new ways of learning in the 21st century. We have been compared to these institutions many times. Parinama Academy strived to provide value in terms of skills required for success and its unique Educational Agile Scrum Methodology. We are focused on the outcome and superior learning experience.
Our cost, methodology RLAD, and Student Success Management
We promised outcomes and we delivered using our RLAD approach – Review, Lesson plan, Assessment and Demo by students(To prove we delivered stakeholder expectations!)
Our courses were offered twice a week 1 hour or less class duration. We provide 1.5-hour classes and use diagnostic tools from ixl,chesskid and other online portals to aid student mastery over learning new skills.
We also provided an optional 4 one hour add on classes based on availability for the monthly program to extend the learning experience further.
In-person classes
Kumon $130 for 4 hour class /month
Mathnesium-$160 for 4 hour class /month
Best brain $90 for 2 hour class/month
Code ninja $150+ for 4 hour class/month
We provided 6 hours per month for $102.50 and an additional 4 hours for free (Small booking fee of $4.99 per booking applies)
We are very close to our students
Kumon, Best Brains, Best in class, Mathnasium, Eyelevel and other institutions have larger class sizes. Our typical class has 2 to 3 kids per teacher not to exceed 6 kids per teacher.
We provide and assign a student success manager who provides a personalized lesson plan for the kid.
Parinama Competitions
We conducted competitions and encouraged students who are creative and competitive to engage in using their newly acquired skills. We did it on a monthly basis and on a yearly basis. We also conduct creativity competition.
We span into 3 tracks Learn, create and compete while competition is focused on Learn or create. We have sent kids to State chess championships, Nationals in NSF Spelling Bee ,Math Bee, Geo Bee and Science Bee.
Thank you
Thank you for continuing to learn from our academy - Kids. adults and everyone in between( babies -kids - humans - not in a human state ?-middle and high schoolers and voting adults !!)
We continue to work with RRISD and LISD as an approved vendor. The state of Texas has officially closed school campuses till the end of the school year but learning will continue online.
I want to take a moment to thank everyone in our team working through and helping kids learn during these corona times.
Post Corona Plans and beyond
RRISD continues to work with us with summer camps in 3 campuses yes in 6-week duration in 9 slots. They still continue to plan for regular half and full-day camps hoping corona times will end as soon as summer starts.
We are looking forward to our center to open by mid to end of May and getting ready to offer regular classes, evening classes, weekend classes, summer camp in our center and in RRISD campus. We will continue offering online classes even after getting to teach in physical environments.
Post Corona Plans and beyond alternate plans
If we don’t open our center in summer or do camps in RRISD campuses we still plan to do morning 3 hour and afternoon 3-hour camps online focusing on learning (1 hour), create ( 1 hour) and compete ( 1 hour)
We are teaching and learning, either way, this summer with more focus on coding, middle school, SAT and TAG prep
We plan to continue to host competitions, classes, and creative workshops
We are excited to teach and learn
Are you?
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