Academic Services

Our tutoring philosophy

Our goal is to provide high quality, affordable, and timely service to keep math interesting and fun for students and affordable for parents. We promote short-duration tutoring, 6 to 8 weeks or two testing cycles, unless students have persistent learning challenges.

• High quality: Our tutors have the appropriate degree and experience.
• Affordable: We work with any budget, if the student is committed.
• Timely:  If students meet session/grade goals, we excuse them early.

Community GivinG

We’re a very small business, but we give big.

• Tutoring Deals at Select Pleasant Hill and Walnut Creek Locations and Online
  • College students (Give-Me-A-Break^© Program, Get $15 back per session through 3/15/22)
  • FOG (Fill Our Gap^© Program, $15 discount. Get on our email list to receive FOG notices & coupon code)
  • Residents of Title I school neighborhoods (30-30^© Program, $30/30 min)
  • Discounts for purchasing a package of 9+ sessions, but availability varies
  • Timebankers (Dollar-free tutoring in subjects other than math, statistics or writing)
  • One discount permitted per session.
• Donations
  • College Book Grant (Cultural Diversity in Mathematics)
  • Crockett Give-Away Day
  • Fundraisers
  • Compassion in Action packs for people in transition
• Green efforts:  
  • We reduce, reuse, recycle, and rethink. We reduce paper use by using online resources, but when we do use paper we reuse paper such as the backside of junk mail. We recycle used paper. We stack our home session back-to-back, and we run errands at the start and end of our sessions. We offer online tutoring.
  • We chose a basement office because it stays cool in the spring through fall, and surprisingly warm in the winter, without the use of gas or electric appliances. We use solar fans spring through fall to keep our office comfortably cool. We use natural light for studying when possible.
  • We reduce our consumption of plastic by bringing tap water in reusable containers when we provide home service.

FAQs

1. Do I have to pay in advance to make a reservation? Yes. In order for use to recruit and retain the best tutors, we have to guarantee that we will provide them with students to tutor. When you commit your dollars to your education, then we commit our expert services.
2. Where do you tutor? What are the “select” locations? Our office in Crockett, public libraries, and coffee shops are the primary select locations.
3. What ages or grades do your work with? We specialize in working with Grades 9-12, college students, and mature learners. We also work with 8th graders in Algebra I or advanced math.
4. How long is a session? Session duration is one hour or less if the student finishes required and supplementary work (with exception of our 45 min or 30-30 program).
5. Can students leave the session early? Yes, there various reasons why students leave early: 1) a parent or student requests it, or 2) if homework is complete, there are no upcoming tests, and there are no questions on past, current, and the next day’s material.
6. What’s a “No-show”? When the student fails to show for the tutoring session. We typically call the parent and/or student if the student hasn’t arrived 5-7 minutes into the session. If there is no communication from the parent or student 30 minutes after the expected start of the session, the tutor is permitted to leave the tutoring location. If the student eventually arrives but the tutor is no longer there, partial tutoring time credit will be given.
7. Why do you have a shoes-on policy? We understand that many people take off their shoes upon entering their home. For the health and safety of all our tutors, we require tutors to keep their shoes on at all times throughout the session. All people are required to keep there shoes on at our offices.
8. When should students stop using a tutor? Tutoring is meant to be an occasional or time-targeted resource, not a long-term commitment. When students achieve their grade goals, when students show lack of interest or commitment, when parents show lack of commitment, or when tutoring just doesn’t seem to work for all people involved, we recommend a break from tutoring or a referral to another tutor.
9. What precautions do you take during the COVID-19 pandemic or other outbreak? We offer online tutoring for the safety of our learners and tutors. We follow local and CDC guidelines for meeting at a student’s home, our office, or a public location. If meeting in person is allowed and can be done within health guidelines, we expect tutors and learners (students) to mask and use hand-sanitizer before, during, and after the session in the home. We are transparent about the vaccination status of our tutors if they provide face-to-face tutoring.

referrals

• Beth Samuelson, SOS4Students, Academic Coaching
• Math Leutza, LaMorinda Tutoring, Foundations in Personal Finance for Teens
• Lorina Daves Tornai, B.A., K-8 Dyslexia Specialist, ldaves@sbcglobal.net
• Lorina Daves Tornai, B.A., College Admissions Specialist, ldaves@sbcglobal.net

M. Lee & Company does not financially benefit from making referrals.