CHAPEL HILL – Like clockwork, students would stroll through Mathnasium’s doors to get math tutoring at the end of each school day.

Then COVID-19 struck and everything came to a halt – but not for long.

Like hundreds of afterschool programs around the country, the center had to adapt quickly to survive.

Within a week, it had rolled out Mathnasium @home – real-time face-to-face math instruction over the internet.

“Mathnasium has being developing and piloting this service over the last three years,” said Ioannis Melenikiotis, who runs two centers – one in Durham and another in Chapel Hill – with his wife, Elis.

“Then came COVID-19, which demanded quick action. Deployment was furiously accelerated to happen within days.”

Courtesy of Mathnasium

The software, ConexED, was originally developed as a supplemental service for those students who could not make it to the center on a consistent basis.

Now it has been scaled quickly to meet the sudden spike demand.

Melenikiotis said it’s been a steep learning curve to get up to speed. But overall, the transition has been “phenomenal.”

“Mathnasium @home has successfully proven its value,” he said. “After this public health crisis has been mitigated, it will continue as one of our strong suites of services we offer to our customers.”

A boon to business?

The shift online is also a boon for Michelle Schooff, founder of Wee-Arts. She offers play-based music classes for children aged 0-5 in Chapel Hill.

At the beginning of the outbreak, she shifted to teaching online via the Zoom platform. She is now pre-recording classes and opening up access to families using GDrive.

“Pre-recording means that families can work the session into their schedule by stopping and starting the session when needed,” she said. “It also reduces the amount of technical issues faced with live broadcasting, like bandwidth issues and hackers.”

Wee-Arts founder Michelle Schooff

The response has been positive.

“[I saw] approximately a 350 percent increase of sign ups from week one to three. The program has reached over 20 cities, eight states, reaching as far as my homeland in Ireland.”

Despite the challenges, there is a silver lining to the crisis, she said.

“This event in time has pushed us all to think outside of the box,” Schooff said. “It’s given me the push to reignite the Wee-Arts business model, and it’s offerings. There is definitely room for an online music and movement children’s program for families with little ones.”