When Frances Kweller founded a learning center in her childhood neighborhood, she knew it would have a massive community impact. Her creation, Kweller Prep Tutoring and Educational Services, Inc., soon became a staple of the Forest Hills community and drew families from all five boroughs to its doors.
With a 6,200 square-foot center situated above the Midway Theatre at 108-22 Queens Boulevard on the second floor, owner and founder Frances Kweller has tirelessly made a difference for students alongside her devoted team for over fifteen years.
Today, the Forest Hills Chamber of Commerce is proud to award Frances Kweller as the Forest Hills Businesswoman of 2023.
Over 1,500 students enroll in Kweller Prep’s programs each year, and over one dozen Parent’s Associations have partnered with Kweller Prep’s programs to provide academic services inside its schools. Enrollment exceeded its ten-thousandth student last year, and the prep school continues to navigate everything from elementary to high school to the college application process.
“Kweller Prep has a very intentional, dedicated mission to help children advance to higher education, including placement in highly competitive environments that build their careers,” says founder Frances Kweller. “We place students on track for success.”
Proud products of Kweller Prep include Sebastian Acevedo, a student whose Stuyvesant acceptance beat so many odds that it made headlines.
Another remarkable success story from Kweller Prep was the acceptance of Abiba Dyuti, whose Harvard Acceptance was the first in the History of Richmond Hill High School.
Kweller is no stranger to making the impossible possible. Over the years, she has become an education activist and community leader. Her tutoring program launched diversity initiatives that helped hundreds of students enter New York City’s highly selective specialized high schools.
Kweller Prep Tutoring’s Headquarters in Forest Hills
Most notably, Kweller Prep partnered with the Stuyvesant Alumni Association to provide low-income disadvantaged students free access to Kweller’s high-quality test prep, tutors, and textbooks.
In September 2022, Frances Kweller was nominated as Power Woman of Queens and attended the awards ceremony at Terrace on the Park with one dozen members of her female staff and two young daughters, ages 6 and 7. “It was extremely important to me that my daughters and young women at Kweller Prep celebrate overcoming the unique challenges and hardships that come with being a women-owned business.”
Frances Kweller, her Staff and Daughters at the Queens Powerwoman Awards 2022
As of July 2022, Kweller Prep was recognized by New York Family as being among the best afterschool tutoring programs in Queens.
Kweller is an attorney from an immigrant family who graduated from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education and Hofstra University School of Law. She is regarded as an education news expert and a regular in interviews on national TV.
Kweller originated a very successful organization due to her frustration with the New York City school system. When asked what prompted her to open her learning center, she replied, “need: enough wasn’t being done to help kids along their academic journeys from middle school to high school to college.”
In 2015, Kweller Prep was government certified as a 100-percent Women-Owned Business Enterprise in New York City and New York State.
Kweller takes great pride in her prep school’s diverse student body. “We collect some of the brightest minds in NYC who aspire to be bigger and better achievers. The friendships created among staff lead to the creation of study groups, new business ventures, and access to major-specific opportunities outside of working at the center.”
Kweller has also served as a model for good. In the spring of 2022, not long after the Forest Hills community’s beloved Chinese food delivery worker and longtime Queens resident, Zhiwen Yan, was killed, Kweller leaped forward.
She launched a GoFundMe via her First in Family Fund, Inc. non-profit to support the educational and immediate needs of Yan’s three young children.
Through her outreach, over $100,000 was raised within a 24-hour period, which increased to $154,160. Her platform attracted a total of 2,600+ donors throughout Forest Hills and surrounding communities in one week’s time.
Frances Kweller’s Fundraiser to Support the Educational Needs of Zhiwen Yan’s Three Children
A humanitarian, activist, lifelong educator and community leader, Frances Kweller is the Forest Hills Chamber of Commerce’s Business Woman of the Year.
