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Meet Sarah Levy and Mark Parmet of Einstein Academy in Montclair

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Levy and Mark Parmet.

Well, Mark has wanted to start a school for 15 years, and Sarah never thought she’d want to open a school. We met almost four years while ago while working together at the same school and united under a shared educational philosophy — both believing that we should always do what is best for kids. The first time Mark mentioned starting a school, Sarah thought he was kidding. She never considered herself an out-of-the-box thinker, and starting a new school was definitely out of the box. Mark, though, had realized years ago that in order to create the kind of learning environment he’d envisioned, he needed to build it from the ground up. After three years of working closely together on a variety of projects, always being hit with barriers and excuses, Mark finally had Sarah convinced that the only way to truly do what they both envisioned would be to build it themselves. They dreamed of a place where students’ individuality was celebrated and cultivated. A place where learning was both challenging and fun. A place where students were inspired to make a positive impact on the world around them, no matter how young they might be, and given the tools and opportunity to do so. So, they both took the leap and have been going full-speed ahead since then. Now, a bit over a year into planning and about two and a half months out from students coming through the door, they can both honestly say the process was nothing like they expected AND more rewarding than they ever could have hoped.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Not at all! We often joke about how much material we would have if we ever wanted to write a book. The most challenging pieces have been the parts we never anticipated and the pieces we didn’t know that we didn’t know. We never thought it would have taken us so much time to find a location, for example, or that a process that should have taken 30 days like getting approved for the Colorado Childcare Contribution Credit would actually take six months and monthly trips to the Department of Revenue. Also, our to-do list never seems to get shorter as each time we complete one task, it seems to lead to four new tasks. Coronavirus certainly provided its own set of challenges as well. When the whole world shuts down for months, no one thinks about donating to a new school, and when parents can barely make it through the day, they’re not focused on where to send their kids to school months from now. Having an entrepreneurial spirit, however, has certainly allowed us to pivot, and our grit has proven that we’ll get through anything. This has certainly been a learning process, though. We could tell you so much about licensing and zoning and tax code and legal structures and website analytics and bookkeeping. And none of that is why we wanted to start a school, but it’s all essential to making sure our business has a solid foundation and is set for success. For both of us, the hardest part of all of this has been not having complete control over all of the different aspects and having to rely on others in all sorts of ways we didn’t anticipate.

Einstein Academy – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are a brand-new private school, opening in August with kindergarten through fifth grade. We specialize in doing what’s best for students, helping them to grow both academically and social-emotionally. We believe that all students are amazing and beautiful, and our role is to support their becoming the best version of themselves. We also feel like school can and should be fun and should be relevant and engaging to students. And we do all of this while integrating timeless Jewish values like kindness and compassion. We are most proud of rethinking how school works and what its purpose is while also considering the role of the student in the school. Most schools follow a model that was developed during the 1890’s for a totally different world. We are a school that was created, from the ground up, for today’s world.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
That’s a tricky question because we see success on so many levels. As educators, success is connecting with students and helping them to be the best versions of themselves. It’s turning a kid who hated math into a mathematician or challenging a kid to think in new ways. It’s giving students the tools to be independent learners as they seek out and solve real problems. As founders of a new school, we get a little taste of success each time we see the spark in people’s eyes when they truly get what we are doing, and why that is special. It’s helping families find a school that is the right fit for their kids and seeing that look of relief and gratitude in their faces. And we also think bigger than that as we are aiming to cause a bit of disruption in the field of education, and that for us is the ultimate success — if we can help play a role in rethinking how students are taught, that is success.

Pricing:

  • Tuition ranges from $7000-15000, based on adjusted gross income (additional scholarships available).

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