Tutoring...

[koby58]

DD2 came to me today with an idea. I told her two days ago that she needs to find some form of way to make income for the coming school year to help pay for gas and spending money for when the band goes to Europe. She is assistant directing all the high school plays this year and will be at school most days after school and a lot on Saturdays. She doesn't want to drop her extra curricular to get a job. Before she got involved in plays she tutored at the local elementary school on Tuesdays and Thursdays for two hours.

Her idea (with another friend) was to go to the school and give out their names and number to help tutor the kids. Both girls are smart, but the school offers free tutoring two days a week. Their scale would be this:
30 minutes - $15
45 minutes - $20
60 minutes - $25

She said that people would pay for their services because it would be more one on one and its flexible times. Also, they would go to their house to tutor. It would be cheaper then an adult tutor. The girls are on opposite schedules with the fact that one is busy when the other is free most of the time.

So really, my question is, would you pay for their services for your elementary school child?

[MattBronsil]

She might want to adjust her pay in the beginning. Many teachers charge $25 an hour for tutoring and people consider them more experienced so are willing to pay more. Once she has built up a reputation of being a good tutor, she might increase her rates to that much.

I think it's a great idea. Students learn best from each other usually. I hope it works out for her.

[EFmom]

Her fee scale may be unrealistic, but it depends on your area. My dh is a certified, experienced high school science teacher. When he has done outside tutoring in math and science, he's charged $25/hr, and that's for high school students.

OTOH, my sister, who lives in a different area, can charge $75/hr for ESL tutoring for grades 7-12.

Our elementary school will provide free tutoring for kids who need it. Personally, if I wanted something beyond that, I'd find a certified teacher to do it and wouldn't hire a student.

If she does this, please have her be very careful about going to people's homes. Many people are idiots or worse. Dh's district wanted to hire him to do this for a few students who couldn't attend school for medical reasons. He went to one girl's house and was tutoring her with her grandmother in the next room. He heard the front door close and the grandmother take off in the car, leaving him alone in the house with a 15 year old girl! Now there's a lawsuit waiting to happen. For your dd, I'd worry about what might happen to her in somebody's house.

[koby58]

Thank you for your replies. I told DD that she might want to charge less and she's talking to the other girl about it. I'm less concerned about her going to other people's houses. If needed she would be able to get permission from the school to do tutoring there. But, she just possibly picked up two clarinet students to teach, so that may change her ideas from tutoring to just lessons.

[noobmom]

I tutored math (algebra) as a high school student. I was paid about 3-4x the going rate of babysitting at the time.

Are your daughter and her friend known to be star students? It's unlikely that I would hire another student to tutor my child unless that student was known to me to be a cream-of-the-crop top student. Not necessary a straight A student, but certainly one that excelled in whatever subject was being tutored.

I would suggest to your daughter that she call around to the professional tutoring services in the area (Kaplan, Sylvan, etc.) and find out their rates and adjust hers accordingly. Those places hire college educated people as tutors, so I imagine she'd have to charge quite a bit less than them. Also, I don't think I would offer any sessions less than 45 minutes because I'm not sure what can be accomplished in 30 minutes, unless you're talking about tutoring very young children.

Kudos to her for getting some clarinet lessons lined up to teach.

[koby58]

Babysitters out here usually get about $10.00/hour, so tutoring would be a bit more, but they usually also get tips when they babysit.
Both girls are excellent students. My DD is A's and a few B's and on the honor roll and the other girl is straight A's. Both are in honors and ap classes.
Kids would be up to fifth grade. Some kids that young don't have attention spans long enough to sit for an hour.
The girls have been checking around and what they're offering seems like a good price compared to the places that are out here. They're contemplating doing a sliding scale and asking what the parents think they should charge if they're told 'that's too much'. The two clarinetists that DD 'got' (she was recommended by a soon to be freshman in college) paid two different rates to the other girl.

[Linda on the move]

Originally Posted by koby58

Kids would be up to fifth grade. Some kids that young don't have attention spans long enough to sit for an hour.

agreed. We had a math tutor for our DD for a while, and an hour is a LONG time for little kid to do math one on one. Sometimes they would be math for a while and then play a game -- I would have rather paid for less than an hour.

I think that around $20 - $25 an hour is reasonable for a tutor to come to your house, and that a high school student with good grades and experience working with children is qualified to tutor elementary school students. High school students do a lot of stuff around here with younger kids -- the cheer camp that one of my DDs went to this summer was run by a girl is who going to be a senior this year. She did a great job.