Local founders have passion for education

By LYNETTE HAALAND, Four Points News

Started as an educational vision by local residents, 4Points Academy recently relocated to a larger space in the same Quinlan Crossing shopping center near Randalls.

Eustace Isidore and his wife Nesia Warner Isidore — each originally from the Caribbean and both successful as a patent attorney who owns a law firm and global trade consultant for a worldwide accounting firm — created 4Points Academy in 2016. The private school offers full time kinder through 8th grade, flexible and part-time programs for home-schoolers and athletes, and after school options.

“The new facilities have more space and a nicer feel overall. We plan to put a playscape in back and use some of the green space for instruction,” Eustace said. The school is located at 5145 RM 620.

“4Points Academy aims to be a comprehensive one-stop educational alternative for parents,” said Eustace.

Their goals with the private school is to expand but to keep the class sizes small.

“It feeds into our philosophy of building individually into each student,” Nesia said.

The Isidores lived in River Place for a decade before moving to Steiner nearly three years ago.

The couple met at the University of Houston. Nesia, from Jamaica originally, got her second master’s degree in international law at UH. Prior to that she earned her master’s degree in international business at the University of South Carolina.

Eustace came to the U.S. from Antigua to go to college and he also ran track at Murray State University in Kentucky. The 4×4 track team he was part of went to nationals in 1992, and he visited Austin for the first time then.

He ended up transferring to the University of Houston where he would tutor other students in math and chemistry while he was earning an electrical engineering degree. Then he enrolled in the University of Houston Law School.

Eustace started working for a law firm in Austin and that is what brought them here.

Now Eustace is an owner of an intellectual property law firm. To date, he has written and/or prosecuted over 1,000 patent applications, resulting in hundreds of patent issuances, and he has experience with IP licensing, enforcement and protection issues.

Nesia is a global trade consultant at an international accounting firm.

Austin reminds Nesia of Jamaica in many ways but she misses the way the Caribbean educates children more at their level rather than their age.

Within a few years after their son was born in 2009, they knew he was advanced academically. By age 2 or 3, Etienne was reading, counting to 100 and doing math.

They started him in private school, which included language classes, and he was two grade levels above his peers. It was a struggle to keep him to his pace level, Nesia said. Etienne would be placed in classes where the subjects would be something he had already learned and he would ask, “Why would I repeat?”

They also found that their daughter, Naome, who is 18 months younger, was above grade level academically.

The Isidores found that most schools are not as equipped as they had hoped to educate academically advanced students. After an extensive and intensive search, they realized that there was a need for such instruction and that is when they got the idea to create what they were looking for.

But Eustace stresses, 4Points Academy’s philosophy is to offer instruction based on the individual student’s academic ability.

“(4Points Academy) fosters academic growth at above level, as well as on level and below level,” he said.

In small class sizes, 4Points Academy covers the core subjects (math, English language arts, science, social studies), the school offers Spanish and Mandarin, IT, robotics, coding/programming, sports mechanics, business entrepreneurship, leadership skills, art, music, public speaking, typing and handwriting (both script and cursive).  

4Points offers flexible enrollment options for home-school families and travelling students and flexible kindergarten program that includes Spanish language instruction.

Last summer, they acquired IQuest, an after-school and camp program, and relaunched it as MindQuest. The IQuest Global Enrichment Center was founded over five years ago by local resident Iris Wong, who passed away in July from cancer.

Now 4Points’ after school care that has both instructional and non-instructional components, and tutoring in math (K-12) and exam prep classes, such as PACE Prep.

Currently the school, with its certified teachers, has eight students. The Isidore’s goal is closer to 25 students.

“(We) offer a warm and nurturing environment for children to grow into globally minded citizens,” Eustace said.