We recently connected with Bonnie Cohen-Greenberg and have shared our conversation below.
Bonnie, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
All our Learning Specialists (tutors) at BCG Learning Specialists have a minimum of a Master’s degree. We pay significantly more to hire the best professionals available to meet every student’s needs. Since we are not a franchise, all the tuition we collect goes directly toward helping each student. BCG customizes each student’s curriculum based on his or hers needs, with special consideration for psychological, speech and language, occupational therapists’ evaluations, school reports, teacher recommendations, and most of all, input from parents and students. In addition, the specific methods we use have been well-researched and duplicated numerous times over many years. The methods have been proven to positively effect performances on large samples of students.
Bonnie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
How you got into your industry I thoroughly enjoyed college, graduate school, and my doctoral program. However, early schooling was not a happy time for me. Until the sixth grade, I attended a school that was on split sessions due to the lack of space, forcing me to attend school for only half a day in overcrowded classrooms. The overburdened teachers did not know me, had little time to teach me, and as a result, handed me good grades. I moved to a top-notch school district in sixth grade, where the teacher realized I was gifted verbally but had significant issues with gross and fine motor skills and spatial relations. I work in special education with students who also learn differently, supporting myself through graduate school by tutoring. After receiving my Master’s degree in Special Education in 1979 with additional course work in assessment and the teaching of reading, I worked as an educational evaluator for the City of New York in 1979, where I assessed students to determine whether they had a learning disability.
Afterward, I taught students with learning disabilities in a variety of public and private settings. However, my real passion came from working with students in a 1:1 setting, and I decided to leave teaching and tutor full-time. I worked in private schools and with homeschoolers during the day and with public school students after school and on weekends. When my students reached the point where they needed educators to tutor them in subjects I didn’t teach, I referred them out, in-servicing the new tutors on the specific needs of my students. It didn’t work! Although the tutors acted like they understood the students they were responsible for teaching, the parents complained that their children’s needs (especially emotional ones) were not being met. Realizing that I needed to be more hands-on, I started recruiting tutors who had both subject knowledge and a deep understanding of students who learn differently to collaborate with me. I have been in this field in many different capacities for over 44 years. I am now joined by writing coaches, early intervention specialists, and tutors specializing in all the secondary level content areas. Every one of our 179 educators has a background in working with ADHD, LD, Gifted, and Alternative Learners.
what type of products/services/creative works you provide,
We specialize in tutoring individuals who learn differently and those with special needs, including gifted and twice-exceptional students in every subject imaginable, including standardized tests prep, executive skills coaching, life coaching, critical reasoning, and note taking. We carefully match our professionals and students to ensure our students’ success.
What problems you solve for your clients and/or what you think sets you apart from others.
Many of our students are alternative learners who do not succeed in their environment without support. However, with the right interventions, they can flourish and become extraordinarily successful adults. We advocate for our students at no charge and are available to answer questions and advise parents on the best course of learning for each individual situation.
What are you most proud of?
I am proud when our students live up to their potential and develop confidence. This confidence comes from not only our methods but also the fact that our students can trust that their tutor has a genuine interest in them and their progress.
Countless students have stayed in touch with me, and we have tutored many of their own children. They have gone on to wonderful careers, becoming fully self-supporting and contributing to society.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
July 21, 2019 my daughter suddenly passed away at the age of 37. The grief was overwhelming as we were so close, and I really didn’t want to live. However, I had her two young children with special needs, ages 4 and 6 at the time, that I then needed to take care of, as well as a husband who also lost our daughter and my son who lost his best friend. I loved my work, but I didn’t know how I would have the energy to keep going. What I found was that my work was therapeutic. It keeps me focused on something other than my daughter, and watching our students flourish provides me with joy even when I am sad.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
To have tutors with a great deal of quality experience, graduate degrees, and a passion for working with students who learn differently, I needed to pay the tutors most of what I collected. Little money was left for overhead, and I needed to use the compensation that I received through my own tutoring to fund the practice. However, I was happy as I was following my calling. We opened a physical learning center, outgrew it in three years, and then moved to a multilevel 2000 square feet office that we divided into smaller offices.
After several years, traffic had become unbearable; people were traveling from long distances (Gwinnett County to East Cobb, etc.) because of our uniqueness. In addition, I knew that I needed to raise our rates if we were to maintain our current space. However, I didn’t feel comfortable doing so because of the economic struggle that families were feeling in 2008. In fact, I was doing a great deal of work pro bono at that time. Therefore, we decided to become community-based. Some of our tutors traveled to a student’s home, and others had private offices in professional buildings or home offices in the communities where their students lived. I moved my personal office into my home. To stay in touch with the families and remain an active case manager, I encouraged parents to meet with me monthly, at least. Like all our communication, there was never a charge for that service.
As we grew, I had to spend more of my time managing the practice, leaving little time for working with students. I was ready to go back to being a solo practitioner when my son (who had previously worked with students who learn differently) begged me to remain open. He knew this practice was my “third child” and didn’t want me to give up my dream. At the time, Eric was a professional musician who had been on tour for the past eight years. He came back to Atlanta, obtained a graduate degree in special education, and helped me modernize the practice.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bcglearning.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BCGLearning