Within his decades-long career as a teacher and principal, Rick Deutsch, 75 of Warwick realized that “good tutors were hard to come by.”

He took matters into his own hands, opening his tutoring company, Academic Advantage, in 2006. It started with zero students and teachers, and over the years, Academic Advantage has grown to 50 tutors and 150 kids a week, serving all of Rhode Island and parts of Southeastern Massachusetts. In order to reach customers across the region, students can either meet tutors at the brick and mortar location at 1845 Post Road, Warwick, or in a public place closer to home like libraries and coffee shops or virtually. Deutsch said that the tutoring service employs a specialized approach. 

“This whole program is individualized,” he said. “We identify what the needs are of every particular student. It’s not a boxed curriculum. It’s helping students, whatever their needs are.”

Academic Advantage offers tutoring in all grade levels and “all major subjects,” including Math, English, Reading, Science, History, Computer Science and foreign languages like Spanish, French and Italian. For each student who requests services, whether it’s “1st grade or Calculus,” Deutsch strives to find the tutor who is the best match for personality, expertise and location.

“We really try to service what the client wants,” he added. “That’s why we’re so successful. We try to be consumer friendly.”

Duetsch explained that about half of his clientele are referred through contracts with ten school districts– Johnston, Ponagansett, Cherico, North Kingstown, Cranston, Scituate, Lincoln, Jamestown, Burrillville and Blackstone Valley Prep. In some instances, Academic Advantage works with the schools to provide credit remediation– with 30 hours of tutoring, the student can receive course credit. 

Tutoring helps catch up

For these students, Academic Advantage’s focus is to prevent them from falling even more behind and help them catch up. Deutsch said that tutors have access to the class assignment pages so they can help their students with specific tasks. He added that the battle against learning loss has picked up in the wake of the pandemic.

“They talk a lot about catching up,” he added. “But truthfully, they lost things that they’re not going to get back. We get a lot of those students and we try to bring them up the best that we can.”

To Deutsch, Academic Advantage helps to fill in the gaps. He said there is “no connection in education,” especially with the influx of technology in the classroom. 

“Kids growing up want to learn, but I also believe that too many kids are graduating high school in spite of the education system instead of being helped through the education system.”

Amy Lord has been tutoring in science, English and math with Academic Advantage since she started teaching in 2018. She said an important part of her job is “relationship-building.”

“Confidence building is more my role than academics in a way,” she said. “Yes, academics are a big part of it, but a lot of people who are struggling have been conditioned to think ‘school isn’t for me’ and ‘I can’t do math’ or ‘I can’t write and essay.’”

Lord said she enjoys making connections with her students and has kept in contact with a lot of them after they are done with their tutoring. 

“I love seeing how far they come in the course of a few weeks or even for a few years,” she added. 

Not all students

are struggling

Deutsch added that not all of the students at Academic Advantage are struggling. He said that when he started this business, he initially expected to get C, D and E students trying to pass. Instead, he’s interacted with a lot of B and B+ students who want to be A students. 

Tutoring services cost $65 a session regardless of subject matter. There is a loyalty program called the “academic passport” – if one pays $50 in August or September, they will get $5 off each individual session through the end of July. Deutsch said 30 parents have signed up for that. 

In addition to course tutoring, Academic Advantage also provides SAT workshops. For example, they offer a 20 hour package in which the students meet for four hours a day the week before the August SAT. 

According to Deutsch, Academic Advantage gives back to the community in more ways than tutoring. For 14 years, they have given $1,500 worth of scholarships to three high school students a year who “best represent their school,” totaling $21,000 in awarded scholarships.

This year, Reagan Tremblay from Chariho High School, Christine Dutt from Toll Gate High School and Ella Neidelman from the Prout School were each awarded $500.

Tremblay is the second scholarship winner who was a client at Academic Advantage. She said that after her brother did tutoring with them, she used their services for help in Pre-Calculus and SAT prep. 

“It was really helpful,” she said. “We worked together well.”