Today we’d like to introduce you to Elora (Ellie) Carmack.
Hi Elora (Ellie), we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I actually wanted to be a teacher starting in middle school, but I ended up going to law school, graduating in 2011 with the stark realization that I absolutely did not want to be a lawyer! Through the school’s global internship program, I was connected to a Belgian professor working with the Kingdom of Bhutan to develop their own legal academic program. It was certainly not anything I expected, but that is how I began my teaching career: tucked away in the Himalayas, drinking butter tea, making wonderful friends, and teaching Bhutanese undergraduate students.
When I returned to the US for family, I began working with Kaplan test prep, teaching everything from the PSAT to the LSAT, and it was through this work that I made a connection at North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, where I ended up teaching pre-law and philosophy classes for five more years. Unfortunately, the pandemic affected the school as it did everyone, and my department had to make cuts.
I decided to use the opportunity to return to school for a degree in motorcycle mechanics, and I bounced from job to job for a little while, from Harley Davidson staff to arcade game technician to geospatial stratospheric imaging robot flight tech. It was all fun, traveling the country and learning so many new things, but I couldn’t shake this one feeling. I missed teaching!
With immense support and encouragement from my wife, I started Inclusive Test Prep and Tutoring. Since I am late-diagnosed AuDHD myself, tutoring seemed like a perfect way to not only reclaim the joy of teaching, but also provide support specifically for students who might not be able to be adequately served by schools or whose parents don’t understand their different ways of thinking and being. This is usually through no fault of the schools or the parents, of course. We just tend to build systems that best suit the most common needs.
I never did very well simply working for someone else. Without the passion, even wild or fun jobs failed to feel worthwhile (which is common for neurodiverse brains!). Working for myself is much more work, but it is so much more gratifying. I get to do work that I feel truly matters, and I get to direct my own sails.
The first year was slow, as I laid the administrative groundwork while working nights at Dave & Buster’s and finding clients through friends and family and word of mouth. Networking through schools and other educational institutions did not bring as much business as I had hoped. The value of my niche became much more clear once I began connecting with mental health professionals. The work they do in clinical settings is so vital and can be truly transformative, and then I can come provide further support for families at home, where the wheels meet the road so to speak. Whether it’s executive functioning coaching, developing study skills, or just plain explaining fractions in a different way, I try to carry that safe and understanding style of engagement to the academic environment, where the ability to think differently and make mistakes are even more important!
The more students I help, the more I love this work. I have become so proud to be part of the vast number of caring and capable helpers in this beautiful state. For all the extra work of being the only employee, starting ITPT has given me the freedom to really help in the best ways I can.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It would be pretty silly to pretend that starting a business is all smooth sailing. Sometimes it seemed like literally every single step had something go wrong! I have been working with my own autism and ADHD my whole life, of course, but since I didn’t actually know that until my thirties, starting this business gave me an opportunity to pay attention to them and really practice what I preach. The first step of filing the business name paperwork with the county was probably the most emotionally difficult step, but it was pretty much also the only smooth one.
I can’t even say how many times I felt defeated just trying to make a website. I used to make them for fun in basic html, but that was twenty years ago, and failing over and over again at that early step really made the whole business feel impossible for me. Without my wife’s steadfast support (and penchant for design), I would likely have given up here.
The biggest panic moment, though, came when things were really just starting to pick up after my first few clients. The bank, with no warning whatsoever, at the end of business hours on Friday, closed the business bank account, leaving me in complete limbo and scrambling to accommodate clients while trying not to look like a fool. I was eventually able to get set up with a credit union and carry on, but man, that was a bad week. Not having the funds from the original account until they could mail me a check a month later didn’t help either! They never did tell me why they closed it.
The thing is, though, when it’s your own business, you can’t just say it’s a problem for accounting or the boss or whoever, because you are accounting! And the boss! Your only option is to figure it out.
As you know, we’re big fans of Inclusive Test Prep and Tutoring. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Inclusive Test Prep and Tutoring specializes in one-on-one tutoring in any subject for students from middle school on up. You have to get pretty far before you go beyond content with which I am familiar, and even then, we can still work on executive function and study skills! I also help students with standardized tests, whether it’s the SAT, ACT, GRE, LSAT, or several others.
ITPT is particularly focused on inclusivity, though. Since I am neurodiverse, my work is largely devoted to helping neurodiverse learners. Not only does it help the student to have someone who really understands, but it also often helps the parents gain understanding of what it is like for their child. Beyond that, I offer a sliding scale for fees when necessary, discounts for HBCU students, and a non-judgmental, adaptive approach for every individual student. I have helped veterans pass entry tests for grad school, encouraged depressed students to tell their stories, enabled autistic students to advocate for themselves, and even taught a blind man to play guitar.
My entire teaching career has been fueled by my belief that any person can learn any thing.
Tutoring sessions themselves can be in-person or virtual, depending on student needs. We start from a usual default of one-hour sessions once a week, but again, this is dictated by what the student needs. Sometimes it’s every day of the week, sometimes it’s every other week or just as needed through the semester.
The student’s individual situation is always taken into account, since, while I am full of knowledge and ideas, no one idea suits every student’s needs. What works better is building each student’s toolkit so that they can find the right thing for them.
What’s next?
For the immediate future, I plan to just keep helping new clients and maintaining the amazing relationships I already have. One truly bittersweet thing about teaching is that the entire goal is to form a strong connection which necessarily ends in parting ways, while every year there are always new students. They are what make the career stay fresh, even after talking about how to find the surface area of a cylinder for over a decade.
Beyond that, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t daydream from time to time about finding like-minded educators to bring on board. I set the business up to make it possible, and I would truly love to expand my ability to keep students from falling through the cracks, whether that be just more students locally or spreading beyond the Triangle. At the moment though, job posting, hiring, and payroll sound like a problem for another day, not to mention finding even more clients!
Pricing:
- Standard Rate $150/hr
- “Better test score” Package $2,500
- Semester-long (16 wk) Package $2,000
- Need-based Sliding Scale Options
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.inclusivetestprep.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elora-carmack-61141919/
