Danielle Trudeau says business at Oxford Learning Centre is growing despite the fact that they have closed their doors much like the schools across the province.
Trudeau, the owner of the Oxford Learning Centre says they have adapted to the situation by creating a Virtual Table which allows them to teach using Zoom Meeting online technology.
"For us, we have been finding that we have actually increased business just because of the nature of what we do," said Trudeau about the tutorial service.
That new virtual program has allowed them to actually expand their program outside the walls of their facility on Airport Road in North Bay.
"We are enrolling clients from Kapuskasing, Timmins and these communities that do not have access to services like ours," she said.
That means their ten instructors, who work with a three student to one teacher ratio, are actually busier than normal.
"Since we have opened the Virtual Table program nothing has actually changed except more enrolment for example," said Trudeau.
"Unlike the public school system where they are sending students things like links or YouTube videos, we have certified teachers sitting face-to-face actually teaching the students.
"Our Education Director, Paige Trudeau-Shemilt, is able to pop in and see everybody and do all the monitoring that she would normally be doing in the centre. She is meeting with the parents to go over the programs over Zoom. So from our perspective, nothing has changed except that we are just not in person. The adaptation for us was really just getting the families to be able to link up to Zoom."
Trudeau believes their service is more important now as students try to adapt to doing schoolwork from home.
"We are also supplementing for what is not going on in the classroom right now," she said.
Trudeau also thanks the community for trusting them with their additional educational needs.
