Earlier this week, Frisco-based INC Tutoring founder Jay Veal launched the nonprofit Black Tutors of Social Media, which seeks to connect students of color with tutoring and support services in their local area, as well as highlight black-owned tutoring companies across the country.
But that’s not the only thing that’s going on at INC.
In the coming weeks, Veal is planning to open up a second headquarters for the venture in Atlanta. And as the company is expanding geographically, it has also been growing in the services it offers, so it’s changing its name to INC Education.
“Over the years, people kept asking us to do different stuff… and we were like, ‘we don’t want to turn them away,’” Veal told NTX Inno. “So over the course of time we aggregately said, ‘screw it we’re just going to go ahead and do it all.’”
INC was founded in 2015 to address the issue that while students of color make up the majority of students in public schools across the country, the bulk of staff are white. This creates an environment in which students lack role models who look like them or have advisors and counselors that may not understand their background and needs, Veal said. However, Veal is quick to note that though INC’s focus is on students of color, all students are welcome.
INC already operates in North Texas, Austin, Chicago and Washington, D.C., among other places. Veal said the move to Atlanta will help continue to grow the business, which offers educational services spanning academic coaching, test prep, mentoring, editing services, resume reviews and consulting. The company hopes its Atlanta operation will grow larger than its presence in North Texas in the next year and a half – its hoping to grow its team there to about 50 by the end of September. INC also plans to coincide the creation of the new headquarters with an expansion into the Charlotte market.
“I’m thinking that right now, the education side of the house could be the next up and coming thing for Atlanta… I believe there’s a lot more opportunity here to either fix issues or to be able to assist students in the educational system from a public perspective, a charter school perspective and also a private school perspective,” Veal said. “I think Atlanta is a place where it’s fast moving, you need to adapt strongly and adapt quickly.”
For Veal, part of the draw of Atlanta is its growing Black tech and entrepreneur scene and the vibrancy of the Black community there. Part of it is the city’s school system, where he sees an opportunity for INC to help out. In 2014, 35 educators in Atlanta Public Schools were indicted in a cheating scandal involving changing student test scores to boost numbers. Now, the city has a new superintendent and INC has been talking with the entity about free and paid services it can provide.
“I think it’s going to offer opportunity for INC to come in and say, ‘how can we be a strategic partner with the city, how can we be a strategic partner with Atlanta Public Schools… with different ways to offer learning services,’” Veal said. “This is literally the right time to be on our wave… everything is just at a head right now and I think it’s just the right time.”
On the nonprofit side, Black Tutors of Social Media (BTSM) will still be based out of DFW, but it will be launching first in Atlanta, with its website set to go live in the beginning of August.
With the pandemic throwing students in educators into new and uncertain learning situations at the end of this academic year, Veal said INC’s and BTSM’s services are needed now more than ever before, so that it can make sure students don’t fall behind and the achievement gap doesn’t widen.
“We have a place of uncertainty and with uncertainty comes doubt, but with doubt comes reliance on people that know what they’re doing,” Veal said.
For INC, the opening of an Atlanta HQ is just the beginning of the growth it sees on the horizon. After expanding into Charlotte, INC has plans to have a presence in Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. It will also be focusing on growing its teams in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Austin.
“We care a lot about our students, we care a lot about our families,” Veal said. “We’re going to be the newest and biggest and baddest in Atlanta… we’ve proved ourselves in other markets, but from what we’ve heard from the public… everybody has been saying they’ve been wanting a company like ours to hit Atlanta for quite some time. This is timely, this is the future, this is what Atlanta needed this is what Dallas needed, and this is what the future of education needs at this point.”
