Helping Capable Students Manage Rigor and Become Independent

Manhattan students don't lack ambition, they lack margin. Between demanding course loads, commutes across the city, athletics, arts, and activities, the students we meet here are often doing everything at once and managing none of it well: assignments tracked in their heads, studying that starts the night before, and a growing gap between how hard they work and what their grades show.

That gap is almost never about ability. It's about executive function, the planning, organization, time management, and follow-through skills that demanding schools assume but rarely teach. Diversified Education Services has been coaching these skills since 2009, one-on-one, in students' homes, with a team of special education–certified coaches led by founder Aron Boxer, a former Greenwich Public Schools special education teacher and private school Director of Special Services. We've served Manhattan families for years, with coaches who come to your apartment on your schedule.

The Transition Years Are Where Students Slip

Ask Manhattan parents when things got hard, and the answers cluster around the same moments: the move into a middle division, the jump to upper school, the first honors or AP year, the first semester of college. Each transition raises the executive function demands, more teachers, more platforms, longer-horizon assignments, less scaffolding, and students who coasted on memory and intelligence suddenly can't. The same pattern shows up across the city's independent schools, including Dalton, Horace Mann, Riverdale Country School, The Hewitt School, Trinity, Collegiate, Spence, and Chapin, where academic expectations ramp up early, and at selective public schools such as Hunter College High School and Stuyvesant, where the workload jump can be just as steep.

We specialize in exactly these inflection points. Coaching often begins in the months before or after a transition, when new habits are easiest to build and the stakes of old habits become visible. For students already mid-slide, we start with what's due this week and build backward into systems.

What Executive Function Coaching Supports

What Coaching Looks Like

Sessions happen in your home, at the desk where homework actually gets done. Coaches work with your student's real assignments, real planner (or lack of one), and real deadlines, building systems for tracking work, breaking down long-term projects, studying ahead of assessments, and starting tasks without a standoff. We call this functional academics: the coursework is the raw material; the skills are the curriculum.

Parents get a defined role, too, usually a smaller one than they currently have. A major goal of coaching is moving the accountability from you to your student, so that homework stops being a nightly negotiation.

Every DES coach holds special education certification and an advanced degree. Coaches document each session, and progress is reviewed monthly with Aron directly. When a student also needs subject-level help, honors chemistry, AP Calculus, essay writing, our academic tutors and reading specialists work alongside the coach within one coordinated plan.

Who We Help in Manhattan

• Students in grades 1–12 who are disorganized, procrastinating, or underperforming relative to their ability, with or without an ADHD diagnosis — from younger students building their first real systems to high schoolers managing a full course load
• Students with ADHD, executive function challenges, or learning differences, including families navigating IEP and 504 processes
• Independent school students balancing rigorous academics with athletics, arts, and long school days
• Rising college students who need to run their own academic lives before someone stops running it for them
• College students and adults working on organization, productivity, and follow-through

We serve families throughout Manhattan, including the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Midtown, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and Tribeca, as well as Westchester County and Fairfield County, CT. Remote coaching is available when travel or scheduling makes in-person impractical.

Why Families Choose Diversified Education Services

Founded in 2009 by Aron Boxer, M.Ed., S.P.E., Diversified Education Services has helped students build the academic and executive function skills needed for long-term success. Aron has worked in special education for more than 17 years and previously served as both a special education teacher and Director of Special Services. He has been featured by Fox News, NBC, CBS New York, U.S. News & World Report, and CEO Today.

• Founded in 2009
• Special education–certified coaches and specialists
• Executive function coaching, ADHD support, and academic coaching
• In-home and virtual options
• Support for students, college students, and adults
• Serving Manhattan, the greater New York City area, Westchester County, and Fairfield County, CT

Frequently Asked Questions