Head of Growth and Co-Head of Content, Michelle Gainer
Michelle’s career as an educator began with Teach for America. She has worked for the School District of Philadelphia for over 12 years both as a elementary school classroom teacher and her current role as Director of Culture and Community Engagement. She holds a Master’s Degrees in Education from the University of Pennsylvania and a second Masters in Education Policy and Leadership from American University. Michelle oversees marketing strategy and campaigns, brand positioning, content strategy, outreach, and instructional integrity.
Head of Technology, Tyler Woodruff
Tyler is the full stack developer behind Grade Level Guru and will graduate from Temple University with a Bachelors Degree in Cyber Security in Winter 2026. The son of an educator, Tyler is passionate about the Guru mission and creating a product that can really benefit students, parents, and teachers. Tyler manages platform website and app development, testing, maintenance, databases, security, and integrations.
Head of Operations and Co-Head of Content, Amanda Gifford
After 20 successful years teaching middle and high school ESL and English Language Arts, Amanda left the classroom to pursue the creation of Grade Level Guru with Michelle and Tyler. She earned her masters in Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum from from Drexel University in 2013 and a graduate certificate in ESL Teaching and Learning from the University of Delaware in 2023. Amanda oversees UX/UI design, product vision and feature definitions, product website management, legal coordination, and instructional integrity.
Our Story
The idea for Grade Level Guru was conceived while Michelle and Amanda were walking down Germantown Avenue in Philly. Michelle unexpectedly and tragically lost a co-worker the night before, and Amanda drove into Philly to spend the afternoon with her grieving friend. They walked over a mile in August heat to a spot to grab lunch and a drink. Along the way they talked about being educators, about how they wished things were.
Michelle, who taught 5th grade for years in Philly, is intimately familiar with how quickly students can fall behind in learning. Amanda, who taught high school, is intimately familiar with the fact that they never catch up. Too many kids graduate reading at a 6th grade level barely able to do basic algebra, and that is the end of their formal education; that is the most academically proficient they will possibly ever be. Believing in the value and power of education, Amanda and Michelle find this not only tragic but unjust.
When reflecting about education, Amanda always relates the transformative role her mom had in making her a very successful student. Amanda was in the 4th grade when her mom saw her state test scores slipping. Her daughter was falling behind her classmates in learning.
Her mom went to the Wright State University Library and made photo copies of every single textbook her teachers used. She read them with her daughter ahead of the teacher in class and taught Amanda to highlight and to take notes. She bought math workbooks. They spent hours every the weekend laying on the floor of the Wright State University Library working. When Amanda was frustrated, she cried, her mom cried. They drank a lot of coffee mixed with hot chocolate from those coffee vending machines that might not even exist anymore.
After two years of this, Amanda was scoring in the top 5% of students, and those learning gains lasted through graduation. She just needed to catch up and fill in learning gaps that her teachers, responsible for the learning of 30 students, simply could not.
While Amanda’s mom’s work paid off and set her daughter up for being really successful in school, very few people want to or are even able to do what her mom did: spend their weekend hours making photocopies of text books and hours tutoring their kid while everyone cries? But, what if there were an better way?
Walking down Germantown Avenue, Michelle and Amanda had an idea. Grade Level Guru was going to be a workbook. Then a couple weeks later, Michelle texts Amanda, “Lets make an App.”
Michelle made a pitch deck and brainstormed every developer she knew: 2. A couple weeks later they recruited Tyler, the son of one of Michelle’s former co-workers at Taylor Elementary in Philly. Michelle had known Tyler since he was a small kid, helping his mom set up her classroom.
Just like that Grade Level Guru was born, all we had to do was build it.