What began 14 years ago as a small education consulting firm working with some of the world”™s biggest companies is now expanding its practice to help families relocating for work find the right schools for their children.
The School Choice Group on April 12 launched a consumer division, School Search Solutions, to help families navigate the region”™s increasingly competitive ”“ and complicated ”“ network of public and private schools.
The firm, based in White Plains, has more than 100 consultants across the globe and in the past was contracted exclusively by a number of Fortune 100 and other top-tier companies to work with corporate executives in the midst of work-related relocations.
For the past several years, however, families have been approaching School Choice founder and chairman Elizabeth Perelstein in search of consulting services.
With competition for admission to some of the New York region”™s most prestigious schools stiffer than it”™s ever been, and with the glut of information available on the Internet often doing more harm than good, “We began to work with individual families on an ad hoc basis,” Perelstein said.
“We”™re just now launching School Search Solutions to directly target individual families as opposed to corporate transfers,” she added.
Initially, School Search Solutions will be marketed to families residing in or moving to New York, Connecticut or New Jersey.
The company then plans to expand its operations to Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington D.C. over the next year, and has already signed a lease for office space in the Capitol.
To complement its individual consultations, it has launched a Web-based tool that families can use to narrow down their search.
“I think that it”™s a first step and I think it”™ll reach more people,” Perelstein said. “For a family that”™s curious but doesn”™t know that they need help or is not sure that they need help and not willing to commit a lot of money, it”™s a first step or maybe all that a family can afford.”
Perelstein said the new consumer division could also be a boon for small- to medium-sized businesses that wouldn”™t have previously been able to afford The School Choice Group”™s services.
“I think mid-sized businesses may not have the resources and yet they have families who have a need, and it”™s a way of getting to know not only what schools are out there but what their personalities are.” Perelstein added that for a family who is relocating to Westchester and either isn”™t offered a relocation package or is only given a minor subsidy, “this is a low-cost way to help them really think about their child”™s needs.”
