EP 440: What If We Treated School Like Sports Training?

What makes Deatra Starling-Kinard with STAR Academic Services a good neighbor?

Tutoring isn’t supposed to be a scarlet letter. If we can call it “elite coaching” in sports, why do we treat academic support like a last resort? I sit down with Deatra Starling-Kinard, founder and head instructional coach of STAR Academic Services (Scholars That Achieve Results), to talk about what happens when you shift the mindset from “fix my grades” to “train for my goals.”

Deatra shares how nearly 19 years as an instructional coach in Arlington ISD, plus the decision to homeschool her son after an ADHD and high-functioning autism diagnosis, shaped the way she serves families today. We get into what academic coaching looks like in real life: long-term guidance, skill-building, confidence, and accountability that sticks with scholars from elementary school all the way into college. We also talk test prep that opens doors, including ACT prep, SAT prep, and even ASVAB prep for students considering the military.

We dig into who STAR is built for: parents and students who want to get ahead, not just catch up. Deatra explains how coaching can turn big goals into practical steps, from unpacking an essay requirement for a Spelman honors program to building an application checklist that helps a student move forward with Morehouse. You’ll also hear how STAR grows through word of mouth, family trust, and students proudly saying they are headed to “coach” today.

If you’re searching for academic services, tutoring in Frisco, or a smarter approach to college readiness and scholarships, this conversation will challenge how you think about support. Subscribe, share this with a parent who needs it, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

To learn more about STAR Academic Services go to:
 https://www.staracademicinc.com

 STAR Academic Services
📞 +1 (817) 228-0077

Transcript

Welcome To Good Neighbor Podcast

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Sophia Yvette.

Meet Star Academic Services

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you in need of an academic services company? Well, one may be closer than you think. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, Dietra Sterling Kennard with Star Academics Services. Hopefully, I had said that right today. Hi, Dietra. It is lovely to have you on. Um, now we are so excited to learn all about you and your business. Please start off by telling our listeners a little bit more about your color.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Oh, good uh afternoon. Thank you for having me. And yes, Kennard is pronounced correctly. Again, I am Dietra Starling Kennard, the founder and head instructional coach of STAR Academic Services. STAR is an acronym for scholars that achieve results. Our mission is basically equipping our scholars with academic services anywhere for math, test prep, ACT, SAT, even ASVAB, if they decided to even go into the military.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Wow. Now, how did you originally get into this business?

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Uh originally, um, of course, I am an educator and a teacher by trade. I had always loved helping others. I was an instructional coach for about 19 years in Arlington ISD. Uh, it came a point in my son's life that I had to homeschool him because at the time he ended up receiving the diagnoses that he was ADHD in high-functioning autistic. And so after having a challenging um second grade year, I decided that it was best as his mother and first teacher to homeschool him. And within the process, I took my original business, start tutoring, and changed it to start academic services because I wanted to be a solution, not for just my son, but for other scholars. And from there, that platform has gone. We're helping scholars get tons of money, saving parents thousands of dollars and getting scholarships because we find our niche mark is really ACT and SAT test prep.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Wow, Dietra. Now, today in your industry, what is the most common misconception you like to put to rest for our listeners?

SPEAKER_02 2:29

That's a very good question. The myth, the biggest is tutoring. Um, of course, my son is a junior athlete, uh, ended up going to the junior Olympics. And I noticed behind the scenes, because it was very specialized and we wanted him to do very well, his dad and I were willing to sign him up with elite coaching. And um, when he got ready to do football, there was elite coaching. And I'm thinking, why can we not do the same when it comes down to academics, having elite coaching? When people come, they're like, oh, tutoring, I need tutoring, but they always think that tutoring, something is wrong for there to be tutoring. So we wanted to change the trajectory. So to change the trajectory, we also have to change the vernacular, meaning we can't be looked at as tutors, we have to be looked at as academic, elite coaching, specializing, and changing where we see our scholars and how they show up. Because I think with tutoring, it's just a I'm fixing, I'm done. But with me, I've been on this journey with some of my scholars since third grade, and they're now in college, and I'm still being able to be on that journey, refining, uh, navigating those courses, those new life plans, success skills with them so they can be successful, just like a coach would do with sports. I want to do the same thing with academic coaching.

Who Academic Coaching Serves

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Wow, Dietra. Now, I definitely have some more questions for you, but we're gonna switch gears into growth for a second. Now, we don't know that marketing is the heart of every business. So, ideally, you know, who is your target audience today and how are you attracting them?

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Our target audience is people truly, our parents that truly understand that they want the best for their scholars. They really want, and I'm not talking about best because they're struggling. We're looking at because I want to get ahead. We truly understand what it's like to have small group coaching or private coaching to give their scholars a head start. We do have scholars who do come to us because they may be behind, but our whole purpose is to be ahead where they are getting uh academic recognition. One of my scholars uh came to me with the opportunity to say, Hey, I got into Spelman, but I'm not too sure about if I want to do their honors program. Well, let's try it and see. So we sat down together, we unpacked the essay requirement. I gave her feedback, she did what was best that reflects her personality so uh Spelman can see it and had an opportunity to now got the acceptance letter. She is now in Spelman's honors program. Another scholar uh had deadlines. He wanted to do Morehouse. Mom didn't think, or parents didn't think he was ready. He came to me and I says, why not? Let's do the checklist. Morehouse want this, Morehouse want that. Do we have it? And with that, we gave him not only the tools but the confidence, and now he's a successful junior at uh Morehouse Now because he was ready to start the application and be ahead of everybody else, and that's what we're looking for. Parents and scholars who are ready to be ahead of everybody else by getting a jump start and getting some academic coaching and not waiting till they fail.

Word Of Mouth Growth

SPEAKER_01 6:08

So, Dietra, how are you attracting this audience? Really?

SPEAKER_02 6:13

It's by word of mouth. By a lot of people, um, I had an incident where a lady uh emailed me other day and she said, Are you still on neighborhood? I got this number six years ago. So a lot of it is parents being very pleased with our service. I have an amazing marketing team that I just got, probably about six months. But most of it is about parents being pleased and satisfied with the services they were getting, even scholars advocating and then hearing them using, hey, I gotta go to coach today. I got academic coaching or sending me texts saying, Coach D, can you da-da-da-da-da, my friend wants to come to sessions? Do you have any more room? So getting the parents and the excitement about our resources, but some of our parents do hoarder the opportunity because of the simple fact we are a great resource and we don't want to just necessarily be for everybody, but we do want to make a difference for those who show up.

Let Scholars Tell The Story

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Wow, Dietra. Well, it's clear you're so passionate about what you do. Have you ever thought about having your own podcast for the business before? I've never thought about it.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Never thought about it. If and if if anything, it will be my scholars speaking before me. If it was going to be about a podcast, it would be the parents and the scholars telling their story and their testimony into what we do.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Now you have shared such great information with us today. If you could sum up in one sentence, what is that number one takeaway you would like our listeners to gather from learning about your business?

SPEAKER_02 7:47

That coaches to academics are just as important to coaches to sports.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

And finally, where can our listeners go to learn more about star academic services?

SPEAKER_02 8:00

We are have an Instagram account, which is Star Academics. We're also on Facebook as Ms. D, with that being M-R-S-D-E-A, and those are some of our most popular platforms that uh you guys will be able to find us.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Well, Dietra, I really appreciate you being on the show today, and we wish you and your business the best moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

All right. Thank you for having us. We truly appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNP Frisco dot com. That's GNP Frisco dot com or call four six nine two two one nine three four five.