Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Souryal.
Ashley, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My name is Ashley Souryal (“Miss Ashley” to my students), and I have spent my entire career in early childhood education. I grew up in Dallas my whole life before moving to Austin for college, where I graduated from the University of Texas in 2014. After that, I moved back to Dallas immediately to start my career as a pre-K teacher in 2014.
After 6 years of teaching in both public and private school settings in the Dallas area, I began private tutoring on the side in early 2020 during the COVID school closures (my first student started with me in March of that year). For years as a teacher, I’d noticed the value to students of a more personalized and focused educational experience, so this had been an interest of mine for a while by this point, but those early months of the pandemic really put the whole early educational system – including the schools, teachers, parents, and kids – in a difficult position, and I saw this as a way to do what I could to help. The situation just created a lot of quick demand from parents for this kind of service, and as a teacher, I had a natural interest in helping young students maintain their forward academic progress despite the less-than-ideal learning circumstances.
I never did intend for this to turn into a full-time job for me, let alone something for which I’d have to hire other tutors to work with me. In those earliest days, I saw this as a side service I could provide during a stressful time for lots of parents and kids, but I’d assumed the heavy demand would likely fade as schools reopened. I also enjoyed being a teacher and had no real intention of leaving the field. But as more parents began asking for personal tutoring help even as schools opened back up, it became more and more difficult to balance the time commitment I owed to my tutoring clients with being a full-time teacher. So last school year, I made the tough decision not to return to the school I where I’d been teaching so I could pursue my tutoring work full time. It was then that I founded Sunshine Learning in early 2022 (named for the nickname of one of my earliest clients whose family I became very close with).
It’s been over these last several months that I’ve been able to set up some of the more formal aspects of the business- lots of talking with lawyers, accountants, tax advisors, etc… – as well as finally bring on board some great tutors to work with me which has allowed us to help out more families than I was ever able to do myself.
That just about brings us to today. Sunshine Learning has now been my full-time job since leaving my classroom last year, and today me and my tutor colleagues are focused on helping all the kids and families we can. I’ve always been passionate about early childhood education, and I feel so lucky to be able to help build an organization dedicated to exactly that.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My biggest challenge was going from managing / running a classroom of students (and their families) for the past 8 years to becoming an entrepreneur and starting my own small business basically overnight. After the first couple of months of running my own business, I was very humbled and quickly realized my areas of strength and my areas for growth. I realized that time is precious when running a business, and I couldn’t do this alone. I still had students to tutor all day but then would come home to continue to do administrative work until late at night. My lack of maintaining a work-life balance led me to some of my very first hires, who are all still working for me today!
Through these obstacles, I was able to find creative solutions to my challenges, tap into resources, and reconnect with old colleagues and friends who I knew were experts in some of these areas that I just didn’t know well. Some of my very first hires were tutors for that summer and my fantastic administrative head Shannon Rankin. Hiring these contractors allowed me to find time to get organized and establish a lot of the early systems that worked for me and the business.
I will never forget one of my biggest challenges in the first couple of months of my business opening was my payments and accounting system totally shutting down on me. Payments weren’t being accepted; I had to tap into my personal savings account in order to pay my tutors – basically a small business’s worst nightmare. While this was a total disaster when it happened, and I had many sleepless nights during that time, the silver lining to come out of it ended up being my discovery of an amazing new software program made specifically for tutors – a program I’m still using today and has ended up being a huge administrative time saver for me and my colleagues.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Sunshine Learning Dallas?
At Sunshine Learning, we provide personalized, private, one-on-one tutoring and educational development services to our young learners. With a core focus on early childhood, our team of experienced educators works to develop a customized curriculum for each learner’s educational journey that suits his or her, unique skills and needs. Our team of specialists provide academic and application consulting services to families to help each of our learners find their ideal academic setting, with our focus always on best positioning all to thrive as they move forward through their academic careers. Our goal is to help equip our young learners with the tools, skills, and confidence to thrive in their future development within their ideal educational environment.
The services provided include:
1.) Custom Tailored Learning
-Individualized, one-on-one, and custom-tailored tutoring sessions led by certified educators.
2.) Skill Sharpening
-Assistance in both learning new schools and developing existing ones at various ages and grade levels.
3.) Extending Education
-Advise on additional resources or support needed for a student to reach their fullest potential.
4.) Grade-Level Prep
-Summer prep for the next grade level as well as continuous sessions throughout the school year.
5.) Foreign Language
-Spanish classes that are taught by highly experienced and certified bilingual teachers.
6.) Private School Applications
-Provide guidance on schools within the area and help you through the application process.
Any big plans?
The sky is the limit!!! My vision for future growth includes continuing to expand my clientele, hiring additional tutors with expertise in different subjects (including potentially tailored to higher grade levels), expanding my marketing presence (to date, Sunshine has been entirely word-of-mouth driven), and potentially opening a physical location when the time is right.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sunshinelearningdallas.com/
- Instagram: sunshinelearningdallas
