The Founder and Director of Star Academy, Larisa Bankovsky, is a proven math teacher of over 33 years. She has experience teaching students of all school levels in both former Soviet Union and in the United States. Larisa holds two Master’s Degrees – Master’s in Mathematics and Teaching Mathematics from Dnepropetrovsk State University (Ukraine) and Master of Arts in Education from City College of City University of New York. She has been developing mathematical curriculum as well as specialized programs for advanced mathematical development of students for over twenty years.
Larisa is a passionate and extremely engaging teacher, who easily passes on her love for mathematics and her dedication to this discipline to her students. Her teaching approaches are both masterful and simple. Larisa is a results-driven teacher, who cleverly finds ways to deliver the essence of mathematical knowledge to her students in the most effective and approachable manner possible.
Over her extensive career, Larisa has successfully advanced her students’ mathematical abilities and knowledge and helped them achieve their educational goals – be it winning a Math Olympiad competition, entering a prestigious and highly competitive middle or high school program, getting into the university of their choice, or simply becoming the best they can be at mathematics.
When living in New York (before moving to Boston in 2005) parallel to teaching in school, Larisa was an owner of Bankovsky School of Mathematics – an after-school mathematical program. Many of Larisa Bankovsky’s students went on to enter some of the most competitive and prestigious middle school and high school programs in NYC, such as Stuyvesant High School, Mark Twain School, Brooklyn Tech, etc.
In 2018, Larisa has realized her life-long dream and has opened the Star Academy for the Gifted and Talented. She is looking forward to applying her experience, expertise, creativity, and passion to create one of the best learning establishments for K-8 students in the Boston area.