Photo by Jeffrey S. Hall Photography
Meenal and Parag Singhal’s interest in education and teaching began when they still lived in New Delhi, India.
The pair worked in IT in the capital city, and taught on the side. When their first child, Akshat, was born, Meenal decided to stay home to raise him. However, she felt she had to do more, and began teaching out of the Singhals’ home.
“Akshat was 1, 2 years old and he was sitting on the table that I would be teaching on; that’s how he grew up,” says Meenal. “We enjoyed education, so I think that’s where our love for education started.”
In 1994, the Singhals immigrated to the U.S. and moved into Worthington, both sticking with IT work. However, having a background in education, they began to notice the lack of schoolwork that Akshat was bringing home.
“We were brought up in India doing a lot of math practice; we didn’t find that here,” Meenal says. “There was barely any homework, especially in math.”
Photo by Jeffrey S. Hall Photography
From left: Parag, Akshat, Ilisha, Meenal
Meenal and Parag sent Akshat to an after-school tutoring program, but that wasn’t a good fit, either, offering mostly memorization and numerical drills. The pair decided to take matters into their own hands, and began creating worksheets for their son and, soon after, their daughter, Ilisha.
Word spread about the Singhals’ math worksheets. Soon, they were distributing to friends and family who also wanted extra math help for their children. After a cousin in California sent an informational email to 600 colleagues about what Meenal and Parag were doing, the Singhals began offering their services for a monthly subscription fee, sending out worksheets and curriculum via snail mail. Then came a commercial, targeted at Asian-Indian communities around central Ohio.
“We’d go to work the next day and come back in the evening … and there would be, like, 40 messages,” says Parag. “There was no way we could continue (full-time work), especially while the commercial was running. There was no way we could have a job and this.”
In 2003, Parag quit his job to run the business – then called MathWizard – full-time.
“It had the potential to grow, so I had to take that risk,” he says.
Photo by Jeffrey S. Hall Photography
A Grade Ahead classroom
Soon, the dining room in the Singhals’ single-family home in Worthington was too small to operate out of, and it was time for Meenal to join MathWizard full-time as well. The couple was mailing curriculum and math sheets that they had created to families all over the U.S. and still they saw a need for more. In 2005, the Singhals moved into Muirfield in Dublin, and continued to operate out of their home for another five years, bringing in students and mailing out materials.
“When we built our home, we built with the idea of building a big enough basement to operate out of,” says Parag. “The neighbors weren’t very happy.”
Since then, the Singhals’ company has boomed. They now have 32 brick and mortar academies spread across 13 states; more than 60 employees working on new curriculum, marketing, accounting and teaching; and close to 7,000 students actively involved in the program. Between the U.S. and Canada, the Singhals estimate more than 20,000 students have gone through the program.
MathWizard originally only offered extra materials in math, but the Singhals have expanded to include English, science and enrichment camp programs. To reflect these changes, MathWizard went through a rigorous rebranding effort in September, and is now called A Grade Ahead.
A Grade Ahead began to serve the Singhals’ children; Ilisha is now a freshman at The Ohio State University, and Akshat now works in accounting at A Grade Ahead. And the program works. Both are Dublin Jerome High School graduates.
“There is a sense of achievement because of what we see in our kids,” says Parag. “We’ve improved academics of a lot of students.”
Photo by Jeffrey S. Hall Photography
“We’ve also contributed to the community,” says Meenal. “That makes us feel connected. It’s just not for us that we’re doing something, it’s for the community.”
The Singhals say they haven’t regretted establishing themselves and their business in Dublin. Much of their life is rooted in academics, and the decision to move to Dublin was the same.
“Coming from an ethnic background, we wanted our kids to feel at home,” says Parag. “Plus, of course, Dublin schools.”
The Singhals have been successful with A Grade Ahead, and say there is still more to come.
“We always want to see what’s going on in the education field and improve,” says Meenal. “In the future, we want to be very IT-driven. Right now it’s very pencil and paper, but we want to bring in more technology.”
Amanda DePerro is an assistant editor. Feedback welcome at hbealer@cityscenecolumbus.com.
