My name is Grace Holloway. I'm thirty-four.

I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. My mom was a lunch lady. My dad drove a forklift. Nobody in my family had been to college.

In eighth grade, I was failing math. Badly. I thought I was stupid.

Then a teacher named Mrs. Delaney kept me after school every Tuesday for a whole year. She never gave me the answers. She just sat beside me and said, “You can figure this out, Grace. I'll wait.”

And I did. Every time.

That year changed my life. I went to college on a scholarship. I became a math teacher. I've taught seventh grade at the same school in Brooklyn for eleven years.

Seven years ago, I started tutoring kids online in the evenings. Just a few. Then more. Then other teachers asked to join me.

My friend Ben Lawrence, who was good with computers, helped me build a website. We called it BrightPath. Real teachers. Real lessons. Fair prices. And free tutoring for families who couldn't pay, funded by the families who could.

Then everything went online, and BrightPath exploded.

Today, we have three thousand teachers and two hundred thousand students. Ben is the CEO. He does the interviews and the photos.

I'm the founder. I own just over half the company. I chair the board.

And three days a week, I still teach seventh-grade math.