<p>D has missed about three weeks of school due to illness. Thank god she already has her university admission, and is a strong student, but it is not fun to fall weeks behind in STEM courses. So I was hoping she'd work with a tutor over her upcoming spring break to get her back up to speed (assuming she's sufficiently up to it by then). She's never used a tutor.</p>
<p>Any good suggestions on finding one? I've sent out emails to prospective possibilities who claim to have the right expertise and to ask if they can assist in the interval I'm looking for. </p>
<p>I though I could select a few and let her choose among them by working with each for a session. Does that sound about right? Any other advice?</p>
<p>If you haven’t done this already as part of your research, it is valuable to know whether the tutor is familiar with your D’s school, curriculum and even the specific teacher she has for each course. There are tutors in our area who keep abreast of exactly what the assignments are for each course at the local high school, and the progression of the class. This makes the sessions more cost effective, because your D won’t be spending time on concepts that her teacher doesn’t emphasize.</p>
<p>STEM course teachers frequently keep a list of names of tutors. We found a good math tutor for our daughter based on teacher recommendation. We also have a very good private company nearby that provides tutoring services. You can go to google maps for your area and type “tutoring” and it’s amazing what pops up. In order to avoid awkward situations where you need to “fire” the tutor it is good to just plan to pay them for one session, then decide if you want to continue. </p>
<p>Hope you D is feeling better but I guess Spring break is not going to be much fun!</p>
<p>We wanted a calculus tutor for our son and asked a high school math teacher we knew. He referred us to his colleague who was very good. Ask any teachers you may know and if you are comfortable with this, ask your D’s teachers. If there are other high schools near you, there are probably some teachers out there who supplement their income by tutoring. The curriculum and materials used are probably similar if not the same. Of course, teachers may already have their spring breaks planned. Good luck!</p>
<p>Do teachers get offended when you ask them for a tutor in their subject? I had one negative experience doing this (“Joe should just come to the morning review sessions (he already was and it wasn’t helping), and ask me when he has questions”). Is there an insinuation that the teacher is not very good if your child is not getting it and needs a different teacher (tutor)? Perhaps I am being over-careful, but that is why I do not ask the teachers for recommendations.</p>
<p>My experience of asking the teacher was good, like Minnymom’s. When D, normally an excellent math student, had a spell of difficulty during sophomore year we suggested she ask her teacher about tutors. Teacher recommended a colleague who was a math teacher at another school. He was excellent, and a period of weekly sessions got D back on track.</p>
<p>When you hire an actual teacher as a tutor they’re not as cheap as hiring a high school senior or college student - at least, this one wasn’t. But I felt we got what we paid for and we were very satisfied with this experience.</p>
<p>We live very close to a top LAC. Several of my friends have had their kids tutored by college students and have been very pleased with the results.</p>
<p>Thanks for your great ideas. CC is always so helpful! I will check with her teachers for suggestions (they know she’s been ill so at least in this case they aren’t going to be offended). And I hadn’t thought that possibly other teachers themselves might be available over spring break. That would be great. I need to meet with her teachers anyway, on my D’s behalf, to make sure she gets all the right material and assignments that have been missed. Will not be a terrific spring break but then I’m really thankful she has this break to catch up (would extremely hard to do so when just doing the regular course load takes up so much time).</p>
<p>You might find out who the brightest students are in her classes and ask them to tutor. The advantage is that they’ll have a better idea of what was missed and could get her up to speed quicker. My son was/is a tutor in his college’s tutoring program. He tutored classmates at the same time he was taking the class.</p>
<p>^ Thanks. It’s usually her, though, and she also runs the peer tutoring program at her school! And relatedly perhaps, she now argues she’ll just figure it out on her own. I still think it would be useful to have a tutor for the set.</p>
<p>Our DD went through the same thing this year, but is only a junior. All of her teachers were more than willing to sit down with her and help out. They were very generous with make up times, etc. She missed the first 3 weeks of this marking period and just finished the last piece of work the day before finals. A couple friends helped here and there as well.</p>
<p>I’ve had good results with Craigslist. You have to treat it like you were searching for any other contractor. Ask for credentials, references, etc. I found that the listings vary greatly. When I was looking for a math tutor, they ranged from high school students to moonlighting teachers to PhDs in math. And there was a big range in prices.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t and didn’t rule out other resources such as word of mouth, teacher recommendations, but Craigslist–or even Google–shouldn’t necessarily be ruled out.</p>
<p>We had two sources. At our D’s school, they had a few recommended tutors who actually knew the courses and the teachers. For our S doing partial homeschooling, we hired a grad student from Harvard.</p>
<p>Our school district actually publishes a list on its website of teachers and special educators who are employees of the district that do private tutoring. Try checking there, yours may have a list as well.</p>
<p>Contact a local college in the appropriate department for a college student recommendation. My DW’s math department recommended her as a Geometry tutor for a local HS student, as well as a PhD in Psych who just wanted to take math so he wouldn’t feel stupid in it any longer.</p>