While many native New Canaanites move out of town, never to return, there seems to be a high percentage of residents who somehow found their way back. Perhaps no family better represents this group than the O’Connell family.
Five of six grown siblings, all of whom grew up and graduated from New Canaan High School, have returned to their roots, raising families of their own. For the two youngest O’Connell siblings–Colleen Bailey and Erin O’Connell–the return to native soil has led to a newly launched business that ties into their roots in New Canaan and professional experience.
Clearview Educational Enrichment is a multi-dimensional tutoring service, individually tailored to help each student fully realize his or her potential. The company developed out of an informal brainstorming session this spring between the sisters, both of whom are currently elementary school teachers–Bailey at West School here in New Canaan, and O’Connell at Horace Mann in the Bronx.
“I wasn’t going to be involved at first,” Bailey told NewCanaanite.com. “I just thought she’d be tapping into my ideas. And the more we brainstormed, the more it became us together.”
Erin O’Connell (l) and sister Colleen Bailey, Directors of Clearview Educational Enrichment. (Credit: Terry Dinan)
“Colleen is always asked to do some kind of tutoring for students at West School, because of her background–reading and special education,” O’Connell said. “The past couple of summers, I’ve been tutoring on Nantucket and it’s been more of enrichment and keeping the students up to the flow at an advanced level over the summer, so they don’t lose anything over the summer. We just thought it was a perfect combination.”
It’s a combination that has deep roots here in town. The sisters moved to New Canaan back in the 1980’s from Michigan, and almost immediately felt the impact of the educational system.
“Looking back, I was similar to students I sometimes work with,” Bailey said. “They picked me up right away for articulation so I had some speech therapy. It was the type of thing I think New Canaan does really well right now. Diagnosing what a student needs to help him catch up if need be, and to push him to the next level. And that’s what I felt like I got to experience as a student.”
“I was an average student and I had a couple of teachers who motivated me to push forward,” O’Connell said. “I love the idea of taking a student with potential and pushing him to a higher level.”
Thus was born Clearview. Utilizing their experience both in and outside of the classroom, Bailey and O’Connell have constructed a tutoring service which can be specifically geared toward a variety of needs.
“It’s really going to be based on each individual,” Bailey said. “So if a parent wants a few sessions before school starts again to be sure the student can hit the ground running come fall, that’s great. Or if someone wants to focus on reading, we can do our own quick assessment and provide basic reading tutoring. If it’s more of the middle of the school year, we can do some more formal assessments and create a program.”
Clearview pinpoints a student’s workspace as one key area for potential success. Creating an area free of distraction and conducive to focus and concentration is one area where Clearview tutors can help.
“What we always promote is make sure the students have their own space,” O’Connell said. “They should create the space with you to have a place that they enjoy, that’s consistent for them so that they know that in this environment–with their desk, their favorite pens–they can just get down to business.”
Clearview also offers clients the option of meeting at various “neutral” locations, be it the public library or an office in a building owned by O’Connell’s husband, New Canaan High School’s varsity baseball coach Mitch Hoffman. In addition to Bailey and O’Connell, Clearview has a roster of qualified tutors, all of whom are teachers at Horace Mann or New Canaan Public Schools. The significance of this is not lost on Erin O’Connell, who still looks back fondly at her own experiences in the New Canaan Public School system.
“I think the memories of the teachers that I had really kept me going,” O’Connell told NewCanaanite.com. “I always thought they had such an impact on my life that I want to do the same for others.”
Here’s Clearview Education Enrichment’s website and here’s the company’s Facebook page. Its directors are reachable at 203-977-2443.