Yesterday marked twenty years of Tri-Ed Tutoring.
It doesn’t seem possible that I am adult enough to have a business that is twenty years old, but somehow, here we are. It feels fitting that the anniversary fell on Labor Day because growing Tri-Ed has truly been a labor of love.
Framed in my office is the note I scribbled during my very first phone call with a parent. I still remember how excited—and honestly, shocked—I was that someone would trust me and my brand-new company to be part of her son’s education.
In those early days, a friend would ask me every month or so how many students we were helping. About three months after starting Tri-Ed, I was thrilled to report that we were officially working with seven students!
Fast-forward two decades, and nearly 3,000 families have trusted us to be part of their students’ education. Those early students are now adults themselves. Some have careers and families of their own, and a few have even returned to Tri-Ed for help with graduate school exams or to become a Tri-Ed tutor themselves!
A great deal has changed in the tutoring landscape over the past twenty years. Where we once drove from house to house to conduct tutoring sessions, we now hop onto video calls and share class materials on a screen. We live in an age when a student can take a photo of a math problem and have AI produce a step-by-step solution in seconds.
If AI can provide an immediate explanation instead of making a student wait for a tutoring session, is there still a need for a tutor?
I think that question assumes the primary purpose of tutoring has always been to answer a math question. For the past twenty years, I have believed that what makes tutoring effective is the relationship a tutor builds with a student. A tutor gets to know when a student needs a different explanation, when they need encouragement, when they need to be challenged, and when they simply need someone to remind them that they are capable.
As I cross this twenty-year milestone, I find myself thinking less about the number of students we have served and more about the individual lives I have been fortunate enough to be a small part of.
Many years ago, when I had my first child, I had already been working with one student in math for several years. She was preparing to take the SAT just as I was about to go on maternity leave. Although we had many capable tutors on our team, I wanted to help her cross the finish line after working together for so long—and her mother hoped I could continue, too.
So we found an unconventional solution: Her mom came to my house and held my newborn while I tutored her daughter. In the process, she became a bonus grandma to my son, continuing to visit us and bring him little gifts for years afterward.
That story captures so much of what Tri-Ed has meant to me. Tutoring may begin with a math problem, an upcoming SAT, or a difficult class, but it often grows into something much more. Over the years, families have invited us into their homes, trusted us with their worries and hopes, celebrated accomplishments with us, and returned when a younger sibling needed support. Our tutors have cheered for college acceptances, graduations, first jobs, and many milestones that happened long after the original tutoring sessions ended.
Twenty years later, the tools may look different, but the heart of tutoring has not changed. Students still need people who know them, believe in them, and are invested in their success.
I am profoundly grateful to every family who has trusted Tri-Ed, every tutor who has cared for our students as individuals, and every person who has recommended us to a friend or welcomed us back for another chapter. Thank you for allowing Tri-Ed to be a small part of your family’s life.