Our Story
By Your Side Tutoring was founded in 2009 by cousins Jonathan Berenguer and Jessica Bouret. Both founders felt the pressing need to provide excellent and affordable tutoring services to their Bronx, NY community. While in college, these two aspiring educators, alongside fellow aspiring educator, Corinthian Morston, put their passion into action and began meeting at Lehman College in the Bronx to set the foundation to how they would help their community. Shortly after, they began to tutor students in their community. Another pressing issue was the reality of parents feeling disconnected from their children’s school. In other cases, even teachers felt disconnected from the parents of their students.
Jonathan grew up in a household with his grandparents who were not the most fluent in English. This made things like completing homework difficult for Jonathan. Because of the language barrier at home, Jonathan had to rely on extra tutoring services at school in order to get better in his ELA coursework. Unfortunately, this is an issue for many students in the Bronx community. Understanding these needs, naming the company was simple; By Your Side Tutoring (BYST) was born to demonstrate to parents, students, and educators that they are not alone in the journey toward academic success.
Parents are busy working, striving to provide a better present and future for their children, so bringing the tutoring to the home seemed like the best way to go. BYST specializes in at-home tutoring services and also provides tutoring services in local libraries.
In 2012, Sasha Henriquez came on board as an additional founder contributing to enhancing our training operations and organizational structure.
In 2020, BYST has restructured its team to better serve the Bronx community. Jessica, Corinthian, and Sasha continue advancing their communities actively as NYC Department of Education teachers. To learn more about our current executive team, click here.
Since 2009, BYST has trained and hired over 125 tutors and has serviced over 1,000 students.
BYST Team 2020. From left to right: Sharon, Tutoring Coordinator; Carlos, Director of Training & Curriculum; Leslie, Community Coordinator; Jonathan, Executive Director.
Cousins, Jessica Bouret and Jonathan Berenguer in 2008, just a year before founding BYST.
Sasha Henriquez and Jonathan Berenguer pictured with a student at a back to school workshop in 2014.