CEO Diana shares how her dyslexia and ADHD inspired Parallel, a platform for students with learning differences. Johnny Curl and Michelle Feldman, who spent 15 years in traditional education, explain why they joined to build equitable access and balance thoughtful work with startup speed.
Chapters
Hi everyone, I'm Diana, CEO and founder here at Parallel. I'm so excited to welcome you to the Parallel team. It's such an honor to be able to work with each and every one of you. For a bit of context, for those of you who don't know, I started Parallel about 3 years ago, very much driven from my own experience growing up with learning and thinking challenges. I was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD, so I fall very squarely into population of students we now work with here at Parallel. It is such an honor to be able to work each day to ultimately make students' reality better and set them up for success both in the classroom and outside of the classroom in life. And I'm so thrilled to have each and every one of you helping me on that journey. And I hope everyone, uh, feels very good about all the work that they're doing here at Parallel, and I look forward to working with you.
Hey, I'm Johnny Curl, Director of People Ops at Parallel Learning. I first joined Parallel because I have seen what lacking access or even simply awareness of resources available to those with learning differences can do to those that I love and even to myself personally. I want to make sure that every child has all doors open to them wherever possible. So at Parallel, we're seeking to gather the best provider community the world has to offer who can champion student success. Our community of providers, full of experts in their field, are just as passionate about the care and success of these students as I am, and I love being part of that.
Hi, my name is Michelle Feldman, and I'm the Director of Provider Education here at Parallel, and I just wanted to take a minute and share a little bit about me and what brought me here to Parallel. So I spent about 15 years working in education with the County Superintendent of Schools, and then in 2020 left traditional education and went to work for a startup, at a remote startup. And what I found is that in education, things typically move really slow. Changes don't happen really quickly. And then moving into a startup, things were so fast that— and moved so quickly, and sometimes there wasn't a lot of thoughtfulness in decision-making. And so I was really struggling finding the balance of those 2 worlds, and I found that balance here. Hello, hello!
I'm Taylor Vealey, Director of School Psychology and Behavioral Mental Health Services here at Parallel. While you've been enjoying a much-deserved summer break, we've been working behind the scenes to welcome you and your students back for a great school year. I came to Parallel because as a school psychologist and parent of children with learning differences, it's very important to me That we celebrate the unique strengths of each student, and that we ensure access to support for all students. I'm honored to be part of a team that is making such a tangible impact on students both in and outside of the classroom.
