Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jacqueline O’donnell. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jacqueline, appreciate you joining us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?
It was the spring of my second year of teaching and I was a geometry teacher at a rural school district over 60 miles away from my home. I would come home from work and need to tutor students so I could afford the gas to drive back to my teaching job the next day, which felt like -and is- a very broken and backwards system. I knew I had to change something in this equation, whether it be the school that I worked at or to find another career in the education field with a more sustainable salary and work/life balance. The thought of working 9-5 at an education company would mean that I would give up working directly with students, which was disappointing to me because I genuinely loved working with them. I felt that tutoring was where I was able to make the most impact with students and it didn’t involve grades, administration, or behavioral problems, all of which drain teachers’ energy in schools and contribute to teacher burnout. I explored working as a tutor for other companies but discovered how big of a cut they take from the session fee, leaving tutors with wages comparable to minimum wage. I was also surprised to learn that many companies don’t screen their tutors or students and there’s little oversight in the student acquisition process – so much so that scammers use this industry frequently to have tutors return all or part of a payment after writing a fake check. (This is from personal experience and customer service said it happens all the time and would not refund my membership over it.)
Working for another company, no matter what capacity, didn’t feel like it was aligning with what I considered to be a fulfilling career, so I decided to try working as a private tutor on my own. I resigned from my teaching job in June of 2022 and spent the summer researching tutoring business models and creating a brand. By September, I had a logo, website, business cards, a business plan, and a handful of students to start. I called on my network to help spread the word of my new business and put myself out there every chance I had – in Facebook groups, neighborhood apps, with flyers, and even joined a co-working space to meet other local business owners.
In the first year, I was able to replace my teaching salary and experienced the freedom of working for myself. I had more bandwidth to get creative with my brand and even wrote and published a children’s book by March of 2023. “The Ultimate A-Z Math Scavenger Hunt” is a math and play-based activity book for children, focusing on exposure and creating connections between their learning and the world around them.
By my second year in business, I brought on someone to manage communication and our operations. Business grew very quickly and the demand for tutoring exceeded the number of hours I could feasibly work. I decided to scale and hire tutors to work remotely with students. It was important to me to maintain my standards for high-quality education with vetted tutors and a trusted brand. I made the decision to only hire New York State Certified Teachers as tutors, since they are professionally trained not only in their subject area, but also in pedagogy and in teaching remotely.
I am continuing to grow and scale our private tutoring services and offer district partnerships, as well as custom curriculum development, specializing in real-world applications of mathematics and programming for women in STEM.
Jacqueline, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’m Jacqueline O’Donnell, the CEO + Founder of Math Refresh, a private tutoring company and math education brand. I am a former math teacher who began my full-time teaching career in March of 2020. I spent the first years of my teaching career in remote, hybrid, and traditional classroom settings, adapting to the ever-changing needs in education during and post-pandemic. I noticed how many educational gaps existed, and despite the federal relief schools received due to the pandemic, the burden of responsibility fell to students and their families to attend to these gaps. Feeling unfulfilled in my role as a classroom teacher, I felt I could affect greater change with tutoring. I left teaching in June of 2022 to pursue a full-time career in private tutoring and to continue my personal quest of redefining math as being relevant and for everyone, something I shared with my students in the classroom too. One year after founding Math Refresh, I decided to scale in order to meet the growing demand for private tutoring and hire tutors to tutor students remotely.
Math Refresh connects students and their families with grade level tutors who meet the student’s individual needs and offer personalized support. We exclusively work with New York State Certified Teachers due to the high-quality teacher training in New York and their deep knowledge of the learning standards and pedagogy. All of our teachers are trained in teaching remotely and have undergone a rigorous interview process to work as a Math Refresh tutor. While our tutors are New York State certified teachers, we serve students and families throughout the United States. As a brand, we redefine math as being for everyone – not just the nerds, teacher’s pets, and mathematical prodigies. We utilize the latest educational technology for our remote tutoring sessions, without sacrificing the personal touch of learning from and with a human being, not a robot. We value the student-tutor relationships as more than an opportunity to learn math, but also a mentorship as they grow and work together year after year.
As a math education expert, I consult with both educational institutions and families on curating a mathematical education journey which suits the needs of their students. Many families are unaware that decisions they make for their students as early as 6th grade affect how advanced their students are in the high school math curriculum. I work with families to guide them through making decisions such as taking honors or AP classes, Regents-level courses, or college-level math courses based on the interests and abilities of the individual student. At the institutional level, I support districts by curating tailored programming for their student population, such as math clubs, review courses, and women in STEM programs.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn the notion of “fitting in” and looking like everyone else to progress and be respected in business. When I was in business school in the early 2010’s, it was very drilled into us that to be taken seriously, you needed to wear only black, navy blue, or white with hair neatly tied back. This was paired with the very black-and-white, Times-New-Roman-font textbooks I learned from throughout my educational career. Business and education were very serious subjects, inherently lacking radiance and vivacity.
While I could (and did) play that role for a while, it felt inauthentic to who I was and it was this very corporate-feeling methodology of business and math education that I sought to escape. I feel I’m a very vibrant person and I like to be expressive in how I take up space in the world! The educational world I grew up in made both math and business feel very cold, strict, and serious. The examples of female business-leaders or mathematicians were limited and they all carried this heir of earnestness as they made a name for themselves in a male-dominated world. I always looked at them and felt a little sad wondering if they sacrificed showcasing their feminine attributes in order to pursue their careers and be respected while doing it. While I wished to be a successful business-woman and mathematician too, I felt disconnected from the women role models because I personally love very feminine aesthetics! My accessories are pink, gold, or sparkly most days, which reflects my personality as a whole.
As I dove into learning theoretical mathematics and explored the origins of mathematical principles, I found that math itself is very beautiful, artistic, and poetic at its core! This was initially shocking to me because based on the textbook math I learned in school, I would have never known this much more alluring side to mathematics existed. The more I learned, the more I felt personally aligned with the essence of mathematics as it exists in the universe – something so unique, carrying innate beauty with such attention to detail, but often hidden away behind this very corporate and textbook-like presentation.
I spent a lot of my life waiting for another female to pave a path for the outwardly feminine women to not only be respected in business, but in the male-dominated STEM fields. Only then would I feel safe to also be my pink-feminine-mathematician self. I needed a role-model who looked, thought, and acted like me. So I waited for this heroine to show up. I read the stories of people who have changed the world, hoping to find my heroine there. While I didn’t, I did find that these revolutionaries have one thing in common – they dared to think differently, to question the norms, to suggest a different way of doing things. They had the courage to be their authentic, colorful selves in a world of navy blue business suits. Yes, I was waiting for a heroine who looked, thought, and acted like me, but what if I, instead, became her?
I developed my company’s branding with the mission of bringing the beauty and vibrancy of both mathematics and myself (as a business-woman and mathematician) to life. I created a space where math could escape the pages of textbooks and tests and become applicable to real-life. I aligned my teaching methodology to highlight the patterns, design, and beauty of mathematics. I ditched the navy blue suits and traded them for a pink blazer and hair bow. Since becoming the heroine I was looking for, I have founded a successful tutoring company, published a children’s book on mathematics in the real-world, and become a thought leader in mathematics education. I’ve learned if you want to truly make a difference in the world, you don’t abandon yourself trying to fit in; you embrace your authentic-self and dare to stand out.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
I have found myself holding many leadership positions throughout my life, as presidents of clubs, board members, and managing teams. As a painfully shy child growing up, I can’t say that leadership was something I sought often, but more so that it naturally fell into my lap. I attribute this to my tendency to be a really good listener, since speaking up in crowds wasn’t always my style. In a group setting, I would often sit and observe the dynamics of the people involved and listen when someone felt they needed to be heard. When there was space, I would ask questions. I would analyze all sides involved and contribute when it felt like I could be supportive, not when I was speaking with my ego.
I continue to use this same methodology as I now manage a team of tutors and staff. I curated my team as a collection of professionals who are successful experts in their field, who I trust to do high-quality work. I communicate with them as needed for operations and also hold quarterly meetings to check in with them. In these meetings, I give them space to share their experiences working with my company, to discuss any successes they have had and any pain points they need support with. I go into these meetings with a very loose agenda, allocating most of the meeting time to them sharing their thoughts and feelings. I find most of all, people want to feel heard and that their experiences matter.
As a follow up to these meetings, I share a monthly “Tutor Digest,” which is structured in a 3-2-1 format. I share 3 “tid-bits” (or pieces of news) from Math Refresh, which address some of the successes or pain points discovered through the meetings and any important dates or business news we have to share. I follow it up with 2 examples of math in the real-world and suggestions of how to tie these examples into sessions with students of varying ages. This part is important to me as a manager to maintain our brand of making math learning as relevant to the real-world as possible. Lastly, I share 1 inspirational quote about math and education to reinforce the positive influence teachers have in the world and that the work they do is of utmost value to future generations.
These simple practices of active listening and consistent communication have created a very positive community within my company, one which people are happy to be a part of and grow with. Our staff feels safe to share new ideas and seek out opportunities to become more involved, which tells me they feel fully supported enough to want to give back. I advise managers to consider how they interact with their teams, what methods of communication they use, and how accessible they make themselves to their employees. The more transparent and accessible managers can be, the greater the sense of community and trust.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.math-refresh.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/math.refresh
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mathrefreshtutoring
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/math-refresh-tutoring
