Over the course of our work with many students, we have learned a lot about how you can make the most of your time with me. Take a few minutes to review these suggestions and expectations before your first session, and contact us with any questions.

Scheduling

• Scheduling a meeting is a commitment to be available at the agreed upon time, and we expect students to honor their commitments to us as they would any other appointment.
• Students should come to each meeting prepared to schedule their next meeting. Look at your calendar ahead of time to see when you are available, and check in with parents and coaches to make sure you know when your commitments are. Check in with teachers about what’s coming up so you know when will be a good day to meet.
• Parents: if you would prefer that we contact you in addition to your student or instead of your student for purposes of scheduling meetings, please let us know and we will be happy to do that.

It is our first priority to be on time for our sessions, and we expect the same from you. Our schedules are usually pretty tight; it will generally not be possible to extend a session so that we can spend as much time together as planned if you are late. In these instances, we still expect full payment for the length of our planned session.

We aim to be available to our students for quick questions in between scheduled sessions. Email us, and we will get back to you as soon as we can. If we are not going to have time to respond by the end of the day, or if the question is more appropriate to a full length session, we will let you know.

• Working effectively on some material requires us to make a more substantial investment of our time in between sessions. For instance, if you want us to help you with a homework assignment, send it to us in advance, and we will review it before our session so that we can spend our time together productively.
• We expect to be paid at the standard rate for any significant investment of our time between sessions. We will notify you in advance of our intent to work outside our sessions and make sure we agree on an estimate of how long it will take and any limits you would like to set. We will keep track of the time and update you at our next session.

We accept payment by check, PayPal, or Venmo, and our default approach is to collect payment either after each session or monthly. If you would prefer a different arrangement, we are happy to discuss possibilities.
Our rate is a flat $60 per hour but will offer package with discount for clients who want more than 10 hours sessions.
No minimum commitment – work with us as much or as little as you need.

• Please come to each session prepared to take notes. Keep your notes organized in a notebook or on your computer, and over time they will develop into a personalized study guide that will help you review the things we have worked on together.
• Identify the material you would like help with and your specific questions before our session. Prioritize what is most important and challenging, not what will be most convenient or enjoyable.
• Review all assignments since our last session (or even further back if there are older assignments, we have not looked at together). Consider homework, tests, quizzes, in-class practice, handouts, videos, writing, and anything else your teacher gave you. Keep your class materials organized to make this easy.
• There is always something we can work on. Ask your teachers or your tutor for additional practice materials/suggestions if you are struggling with a concept. Look ahead to upcoming assignments or ask your teachers about how to prepare for what’s next. Look back to old units for things you did not quite understand. Ask what you can do for extra credit to help improve your grade!
• Share what you want to work on with your tutor the day before our session: forward digital copies of assignments, textbooks, and answer keys if you can share them. If not, scan the assignment, take a picture on your phone, or take a screenshot on your computer, and send it to your tutor so they can look it over. Include specific questions and note the problems/sections you know you will want to work.

With rare exceptions, it is our policy not to meet for less than an hour because it is inefficient. Depending on your goals, it may make sense for our meetings to have one of the following patterns:

• Regular check-ins: If you are looking for help staying on top of class material, regular sessions are the key. We recommend we meet for a minimum of an hour each week. Depending on your situation, an hour a week may not be enough time to explain concepts, review class materials and do extra practice where necessary.
• As-needed meetings: If you only want to meet with us around big assignments/tests or especially challenging topics, we will do our best to fit you in. The key is to let us know as far in advance as you can. We try to be available on short notice, but we are less likely to be free if you are reaching out for the first time within a day or two of when you need to see us.
• Test prep: If you are preparing for a standardized test, improvement is all about how much time you dedicate to practice. Students who can do longer/more frequent sessions and make independent practice part of their routine see better results. An hour a week is the bare minimum here; 2 hours weekly plus 20-30 minutes of daily independent practice will make a much bigger difference.
• Outside school work: If you are studying a subject independent of a school curriculum, the pace of your progress is entirely up to you. Students who are able to speed more time with us and on assignments between sessions will see faster progress.
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Our time together is valuable, and booking a session represents a commitment to be prepared to meet at the agreed upon time. We expect students and parents to communicate with us as soon as possible about any need to cancel or reschedule in order to leave me with a reasonable amount of time to try to find another student to take your place.

• We will contact students between 24 and 48 hours ahead of a meeting to confirm our appointment. Parents: if you would like to be included in these messages, let us know and we will be happy to do that.
• If a student has made a prior commitment to meet with us and we are within 24 hours of the planned meeting, and then something else comes up at the last minute (apart from and emergency like an illness or family crisis), we expect them to honor their commitment to us as they would any other appointment, even if it means missing out on something else. If they make a different decision, we understand and respect that prioritizing sometimes creates difficult choices, but in this situation, we will be need to charge for the cost of the missed session.
• If a conflict comes up for a planned meeting, we strongly encourage you to make up the missed session as close to the originally planned time as possible. Waiting until your next regularly scheduled session will interrupt our progress and make it difficult to catch up.

In order to meet via videoconference, students will need access to a laptop or other device with a webcam and microphone, and an internet connection fast enough for smooth audio and video quality. A small handheld whiteboard with dry erase markers is useful so students can show me their work, a tablet or 2-in-1 computer can also serve this function, and a notebook will do in a pinch.

Please do your best to find a quiet space free of distractions with room to spread your work out.

To minimize technical difficulties:

• Restart your computer immediately before our session and make sure to keep your operating system updated.
• Close all other applications before starting the video call and keep them closed while we work, especially any apps that use a lot of computing power, or apps that use your webcam, speakers, or microphone.
• Test your camera, microphone, internet connection, and video conference setup before our first meeting by doing a quick practice call with a friend or family member.
• Aim to work in location close to your wireless internet access point to make sure the connection is as good as possible.
• If you are using Skype, download and install the desktop app on your computer, do not use the web browser version.
• If you are using Google Hangouts on a Mac, you will likely need to use a browser other than Safari for our calls. Download and install Google Chrome and use that instead.
• Make sure your video conference program is updated to the latest version.
• If you can, schedule our sessions for times when others will not be heavily using your internet bandwidth.