Carolyn E. Welch earned her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and practiced law for 20 years before joining the Kumon family. She is and always has been committed to helping students receive the educational opportunities they need to maximize their potential and thrive.
As an attorney, she represented students with disabilities and their families and worked with schools in underserved communities in their efforts to better support their students. She also served as the Policy and Advocacy Chair for the Illinois Association for Gifted Children, a role in which she was pivotal in helping Illinois state lawmakers pass legislation related to acceleration for students and accountability for schools. She continues to serve as the Chairman of the Midwest Center for the Gifted and as a Board member of the PilotED Foundation, a national non-profit organization supporting schools and educators.
Carolyn’s passion for improving educational opportunities through individual student advocacy work and broader policy change was in part fueled by her personal experiences as a parent. Her two children required a combination of public school gifted programming, a private gifted school, whole-grade acceleration, individual subject acceleration, and extracurricular enrichment opportunities to help meet their educational needs. Carolyn has worked with students in many capacities through the years, including as the coach of a nationally-ranked Science Olympiad team, SAT and Law School Admission Test instructor, school book club leader, and travel softball coach. Her ability to inspire and motivate children, ask the right question at the right time, and communicate with students and families about the learning process is second to none. She understands the value created by the individualized pacing of the Kumon method and its ability to meet students where they are as opposed to a one-size-fits-all approach that many encounter in their current academic environment.
Carolyn’s family is at the center of her life. She has loved supporting her own children through their educational journeys. Her daughter, Elizabeth, is a Physics and Spanish major at Yale University and her son, Jaden, is studying International Relations and Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Carolyn met her husband, Raam Jani, in law school at Georgetown, and he continues to practice law at a firm in Chicago.