High-Impact offers ACT, SAT sessions for students

photo Kendal Shipley
photo Chris Green

Name: High-Impact Education

Owner: Kendal Shipley and Chris Green

Founded: May 2012, held first ACT session Feb. 23

Service: High-Impact Education offers two-hour ACT and SAT training sessions for high school students. The sessions, typically held on Saturdays, are fast-paced and intentionally shorter than most test preparation courses.

Price: $60 per session, per student

Staff: Two

How it got started: Shipley and Green are longtime educators in the Chattanooga area -- together they have about 25 years of classroom experience. Shipley is a math teacher at Heritage High School, and Green is an assistant principal at Walker Valley High School. The pair recognized that good students were slipping through the cracks because of poor test scores and they wanted to offer a shorter, more affordable training course.

"We work with kids all the time, and we're convinced that if you sit a 16-year-old down for longer than two hours, you start loosing effectiveness," Shipley said. "Most kids don't want to give up eight hours on a Saturday and parents don't want to pay $500."

Initial investment: $4,000

Five-year goal: To spread out from the Chattanooga area and teach students across Tennessee.

Why Chattanooga: Hamilton County's ACT test scores are about two points below the national average, Shipley said. And two points can make the difference between a student getting into his first-choice college or having to go to a second-tier school.

Web site: www.highimpacteducation.com

Phone number: 423-505-8558

- Compiled by Shelly Bradbury, who may be reached at 757-6525 or at sbradbury@timesfreepress.com.

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