Huntington Learning Center Helps Special Ed Students Succeed

Steve Adubato goes One-on-One with Anne Huntington, VP of Business Development at Huntington Learning Center, who shares how Huntington provides test preparation and academic tutoring services to students in over 300 locations across the country and how extra help in school can build a child’s confidence. She also describes Huntington’s “Compensatory Education Services,” which support special education students who have been denied appropriate education.

5/10/18 #2142

Excerpt:

"We are pleased to welcome Mrs. Anne Huntington, Vice President, Business Development for Huntington Learning Centers... is it "Centers" or "Center"? Center. But you have many "centers" plural? We do. We do. How many? 300 across the country. Started in 1977 by your parents? Yes. Ray and Eileen Huntington. Why did they do it? They saw a need. So my mother was a tenured teacher right near here in New Jersey, and she saw that students were missing skills. Hmm. And my father, who has his PhD in statistics... so he saw the business angle of it. Right. And they started with one center in northern New Jersey and now... Up in Oradell you said? In Oradell, New Jersey. And now we have 300 across the country. Did it grow very quickly? By the way, one of our children, my older son went there for a couple of years, you have a location that happens to be in Verona, New Jersey? Yes. Close to where we live. So I know it well. Did it grow immediately? No. It grew... the reason why we're here today is because we focus on our mission, which is to give every student the best education possible. In order to do that, we have to focus on every single student. So we understand scale. We have 300 locations, but every location is successful because it focuses on that student. So it's steady growth. So break this down a little bit, because I remember what our son was learning at the time, it was mostly around math, but there's a lot of focus around, quote unquote, "standardized testing" right? That includes... well there's the SAT, ACT, etc, etc, high school entrance exams, different tests... is much of the focus around preparing for tests? So we need our students to succeed in school. Sure. But there might be a gap that's missing. So to prepare for tomorrow's test, we're not going to get to the root of it in 24 hours. So that's where Huntington comes in, because we are... we're really good at what we do. We focus on the weaknesses of where the student's at academically, and we build up those skills. And by building up those skills, we build up the confidence and the motivation for that student to succeed on that standardized test. Stay on the whole question of confidence. I'm fascinated by this. A kid... a teenager... who doesn't see him or herself as smart, keeps repeating that. "I'm not smart! I'm not smart!" And there are countless parents watching..."