What started as a resource for students during the pandemic has become an organization that has reached hundreds of students across 11 US states in just two years.

 

In 2020, inspired by the work she did with her cousin teaching SAT classes to peers at her local temple, Deeksha Kumaresh, Class of 2023, American Heritage Schools, Palm Beach Campus, created an online academic enrichment program called BrightScore Academy. The online education company was born with the idea of students teaching other students while quarantined due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Previous article here: https://www.ahschool.com/palm-beach-campus/blog-highlights/~board/life-at-heritage/post/honors-high-school-students-start-online-education-company)

 

Two years later, they are celebrating 1,150 sessions that have impacted 520 students across 11 US states. 

 

Senior, Deeksha Kumaresh, sat down Spring Break 2020 during the pandemic lockdown and designed the website with the help of her aunt’s software company, Vconnex Services Company, a sponsor of Brightscore Academy. When Deeksha started, the main focus was getting the online platform off the ground and organizing all the logistics that involved running a tutoring program. With no time to promote, word of mouth became the main form of marketing used to reach both students and volunteer student-teachers. 

 

Student-teachers who volunteer to teach at BrightScore Academy receive community service hours, as BrightScore Academy has been approved by American Heritage Schools as an organization that can be used to complete their required hours. BrightScore Academy has had 30 student-teachers in the past two years who provided guidance and helped students in different communities. One of the main reasons volunteers join as student-teachers is that they can choose what they want to teach and go through the experience of creating their own curriculum. STEP, or Student Teaching Experience Program, motivates select star students to apprentice in the second half of the course and become BrightScore teachers in the next session.

 

 

BrightScore Academy has been following a 3-session a year schedule with classes in the fall, winter, and summer. They use different platforms to communicate with the parents and the students like WhatsApp, Emails, and Google Classroom, and all video recordings of the classes are shared via Google Drive. They also use Google Forms for 

registration and to receive feedback after the session is completed to hear from parents. 

 

Classes are available for grades 1st to 7th, with different subjects, categories, and 1:1 tutoring options. The list of current classes available includes Algebra 1, Geometry, Basic Math, Introduction to Medicine, SAT Reading and Writing, HTML coding, and Rubik’s Cube. 

 

As the founder of BrightScore Academy, Deeksha Kumaresh is very involved in the process of “hiring” student-teachers to provide tutoring services. When volunteers sign up to teach, she coordinates a phone call to talk about their previous experience, making sure they have mastered the subject they want to teach. She also sits in through the first class to observe the interaction with the student-teachers and the groups they are teaching.

 

Because of her experience in math competitions, Deeksha recognizes that students can learn a lot when they are part of a competition setting. They started adding competitions to the BrightScore Academy services, so students can have that learning experience. They’ve hosted three math competitions and three chess competitions so far, with more competitions planned for the near future.  

 

Besides Deeksha, BrightScore Academy’s main team is composed of senior, Rohith Karthik, SAT teacher and STEP Program Coordinator; and senior, Veda Madem, One-on-one Tutoring Coordinator.

 

The future of Brightscore Academy is looking very bright indeed. As part of the future plans, Deeksha Kumaresh would like to integrate all the different tools that they have been using separately (Google Forms, Classroom, Zoom, WhatsApp, emails) into the website for easy access. To further increase access, she also plans to create an app for Brightscore Academy.

 

You can learn more about Brightscore Academy by going to their website http://www.brightscoreacademy.com and by following Brightscore Academy on their social media accounts: