Only Students Who Want Tutoring
My standard policy is that I only tutor students who want tutoring, for several reasons. First, it is a matter of professional integrity for me. Second, this helps lay the foundation to establish a relationship of mutual trust and respect with the student – if the student doesn’t trust me, they won’t be willing to ask me for help or accept my guidance. Third, I realize that paying for private tutoring can be expensive, and I want to ensure that clients are getting good value.
Payments
Payment is due within 24 hours of completion of the tutoring session. Zelle is the preferred payment method (more convenient for all parties), but I also accept cash or check. Please see “Services and Rates” for my list of standard rates for different levels and subjects.
Last Minute Schedule Changes
In the event of a last-minute schedule change – cancellation or reschedule with less than 24 hours notice – the client will be charged the full amount for the tutoring that would have occurred if not for the last minute change. In the case of a last-minute reschedule, this means you will be paying twice – once as penalty for the last minute change, and once for the actual lesson.
This standard policy is intended to discourage last minute schedule changes. Any service provider can tell you that such last minute changes are very frustrating. Please do your best to keep your scheduled appointments. Thank you. If you cannot or will not agree to this policy, you would be better served by a different tutor.
View or Record First Lesson - Demonstrating Good Faith Effort
In April 2026, a new student falsely accused me of wasting the free tutoring hour with advertising instead of teaching math, despite my sincere best effort to teach her how to graph trigonometric functions (sin and cos). I spent approximately 55 minutes teaching her this topic from basics up to more complicated graphs, with several examples and help with some of her homework problems, followed by sharing a fun video, and then explaining my standard policies, as well as the full scope of my services and rates.
To deter such problems in the future, I now require that for all new students trying the free one hour lesson, that EITHER
– the student’s parent(s) sit and observe the entire lesson
OR
– that I be allowed to record the lesson and send copies of the recording to both the student and their parent(s).
This will hopefully prove that I am acting in good faith to teach students, and deter such false accusations in the future.