Tutoring Policies
Clear expectations make tutoring easier for everyone.
I want families to know what to expect from tutoring with me—from scheduling and missed lessons to communication and payments. These policies are here to keep things clear and fair while leaving room for the fact that sometimes life simply does not cooperate.
If something genuinely unexpected happens, please talk to me. Illness, family emergencies, internet outages, and other unusual circumstances don't always fit neatly into a policy, and I will always try to find a fair and reasonable solution.
How Your Membership Works
Your monthly membership reserves your student’s regular place on my tutoring schedule and provides ongoing, individualized support throughout the year.
Memberships follow a regular weekly tutoring schedule, but the monthly fee is not based on the number of calendar weeks in a particular month. Some months have four lesson weeks, some have five, and scheduled breaks occur throughout the year. Your monthly rate stays the same, making billing predictable from month to month.
The annual membership rate is based on approximately 46 instructional weeks each year, with up to six scheduled break weeks built into the rate. These may include holidays, planned travel, or other scheduled time away. I will give families advance notice of scheduled breaks whenever possible.
This is why a five-week month does not cost more and a shorter month does not cost less. Your membership keeps your student’s regular tutoring time reserved and allows us to keep building on their progress from week to week.
Scheduling & Missed Lessons
Your Regular Lesson Time
Your student will have a regular tutoring day and time reserved for them. I work with families across several time zones, so finding a schedule that works for everyone sometimes takes a little creativity.
If your student’s schedule changes, please let me know as early as you can. I’ll make every reasonable effort to find another regular time that works for both of us. I can’t always guarantee that a particular day or time will be available, but I will do my best to find something that works.
If we simply can’t find a new time that works for both of us, the usual 30-day notice for ending a membership will not apply. Any unused prepaid amount will be refunded or credited.
When Your Student Needs to Miss a Lesson
If you know your student will need to miss a lesson, please give me at least 24 hours’ notice.
With at least 24 hours’ notice, I’ll do my best to find a makeup time within the following two weeks. Fridays are generally reserved for makeup lessons, although another time may sometimes work for both of us. Makeup times depend on availability and cannot always be guaranteed.
With less than 24 hours’ notice, the lesson will normally count as missed rather than being rescheduled.
Late Arrivals & No-Shows
Sometimes students run late. If your student hasn’t joined the lesson within five minutes, I’ll send a quick message to check in.
If I haven’t heard from you and the student hasn’t joined within 20 minutes, I’ll assume they aren’t able to make it that day. If your student arrives during that time, we’ll use whatever time remains, but the lesson will still end at its regularly scheduled time.
An occasional missed lesson happens, and when I can, I’ll work with you to find another time. If missed lessons or no-shows become a pattern, however, I may not be able to continue offering makeup times.
When I Need to Cancel
If I need to cancel unexpectedly because of illness, a family emergency, or another unforeseen situation, I’ll offer a makeup lesson within the following two weeks.
I’ll usually look first at my Friday makeup availability, but we can use another time if we find something that works for both of us. If I’m unable to provide a makeup within those two weeks, you’ll receive a credit.
Planned breaks are different from unexpected cancellations. Those dates are part of the annual tutoring calendar and are already built into the monthly membership rate.
Contact Us
Planned Absences & Longer Breaks
When Your Student Will Be Away
If your student will be away for two or more consecutive weeks, please email me at [email protected] at least two weeks in advance. Families will receive credits for up to four weeks of planned absences per membership year.
During a short planned absence, your student’s regular tutoring time will remain reserved. I may use that temporarily open time for another student’s makeup lesson while your student is away.
For longer breaks, such as an extended summer break, we can pause the membership. When your student is ready to return, I’ll give them priority in scheduling and work with you to find a time that fits. Because schedules often change from one season or school year to the next, I can’t guarantee that the exact same day and time will still be available.
Holidays & Family Observances
My tutoring calendar does not automatically follow any particular school, U.S., or European holiday calendar. I also know that families may observe religious, cultural, and family holidays that aren't on my calendar.
If your student will miss tutoring for a planned holiday or observance, please email me at [email protected] at least two weeks in advance so we can plan for it. These absences will follow the same planned-absence guidelines above.
Payments & Billing
Membership payments are billed monthly based on the date your student’s membership begins. This means families have different billing dates rather than everyone being charged on the first of the month.
If a Payment Doesn’t Go Through
Occasionally, an automatic payment doesn’t process successfully. If that happens, I’ll send you a quick note so you have a chance to check or update your payment information.
You’ll have a seven-day grace period to take care of the balance. If payment is still outstanding after seven days, lessons will be temporarily paused until the account is up to date.
I’ll continue to hold your student’s regular tutoring time during that period. If the payment is still unresolved 14 days after the original billing date, I may need to make that time available to another student.
Ending Your Membership
If you decide it’s time to end tutoring, please email me at [email protected] at least 30 days in advance.
Your student can continue attending their regular lessons during that notice period. If an emergency or significant unexpected change means 30 days simply isn’t workable, please talk to me and we’ll figure out the fairest way forward.
Staying in Touch
Tutoring works best when we share information. I’ll keep you updated on your student’s progress, anything I’m concerned about, and what we’re working toward. I’ll also send a more complete progress update approximately every eight weeks.
Communication goes both ways. If something comes up at school that could help guide our lessons—a teacher’s feedback, an upcoming assignment, a report card, something discussed at a conference, or a new concern—please let me know. Those details can be especially helpful when a student is having trouble keeping track of what different teachers are asking of them.
Sometimes life outside of tutoring is a lot. If your student is dealing with a move, a major family change, or the loss of a relative or beloved pet, a quick heads-up can really help me understand what they may be carrying into our lesson. You never need to share private details. Just knowing that things are a little difficult lets me give them some extra patience, flexibility, or gentleness when they need it.
For important updates, email is best, even if we’ve already talked about something briefly. That gives me something I can refer back to when I’m planning lessons and tracking progress.
Between Lessons
I may occasionally give students reading or other work to complete between lessons. This depends on the student’s age, maturity, goals, and what we’re working on together. For some students, particularly older students, shared Google Docs also give us a useful way to read, annotate, ask questions, and prepare for our next lesson.
If an assignment isn’t completed, we’ll usually work it into our next lesson and keep going. If completing work between lessons consistently isn’t a good fit for a student, I’ll adjust our approach and keep you informed.
Sometimes students finish something between lessons and would like me to take a look before we meet again. If that happens, just send me a quick email to let me know it’s ready. If my schedule allows, I’m happy to take a look and leave a few comments. I can’t always promise I’ll be able to review work between lessons, but it never hurts to ask.
Technology & Lesson Setup
Online tutoring doesn’t require a perfect workspace. A bedroom, kitchen table, home office, or another reasonably quiet spot can work just fine. I simply ask that students join from somewhere safe and stationary where they can hear, talk, read, and write without too many distractions to themselves or others.
When Technology Doesn’t Cooperate
Sometimes a computer crashes, the internet suddenly goes out, or a connection becomes so unstable that we simply can’t have a productive lesson. If that happens unexpectedly, just let me know as soon as possible. If we can’t reasonably continue the lesson, I’ll do my best to offer a makeup time when scheduling allows.
A little preparation helps, too. Students should come to lessons with their device charged and ready to use, along with any logins, materials, or other tools we regularly need. If a preventable technology problem keeps us from having the lesson, a makeup may not be available.
If a student joins from a moving vehicle or another setting where we really can’t have a productive lesson, we may need to stop and try again another time. Moving vehicles can make internet connections unreliable, and I never want a lesson to become a distraction for the driver or anyone else in the car. I’ll offer a makeup when scheduling allows, but I can’t always guarantee another time will be available.
Student Privacy
I want students to have a comfortable place to ask questions, make mistakes, try ideas, and learn without feeling as though they are being watched or documented.
Tutoring sessions are not recorded by me or by students/families. If there is ever a specific reason a recording would be useful, it would only happen with specific written permission agreed upon in advance.
Parents are always welcome to be nearby, particularly when a younger student is getting comfortable with online tutoring, and students are welcome to have a parent present if that helps them feel more comfortable. As students settle in, I encourage families to give them enough space to think, make mistakes, ask questions, and work through ideas independently.
Siblings are welcome to be nearby, too. However, each tutoring membership is for one student. A sibling occasionally listening or popping in to say hello is no problem, but lessons can’t be shared between siblings or used to provide tutoring to an additional student.
I take care to protect student privacy in any examples of tutoring materials or student work that I share. Names and other identifying information are removed, and I do not publicly share student faces or voices.
Google Classroom & Student Materials
I use Google Classroom and shared Google Docs to keep assignments, resources, feedback, and ongoing work organized in one place.
Whenever possible, I prefer for a parent to have access to the student’s Google Classroom as well. This gives parents an easy way to see what we’re working on and can be helpful when a student has a question about an assignment between lessons.
As students get older and become more independent, we can adjust parent access based on what makes sense for the student and family.
Students will have access to their Google Classroom and tutoring materials while their membership is active. When tutoring ends, families will have 30 days to save or download anything they would like to keep before the classroom may be archived and access removed.
Materials I create or provide are for the student’s personal educational use. Students are welcome to save, print, study from, and continue using those materials after tutoring ends, but they should not be redistributed, published, sold, or uploaded for others to use.
Academic Work & AI
My job is to help students become stronger, more confident readers and writers—not to do their schoolwork for them.
I’m happy to work closely with students on real school assignments. We can untangle a confusing prompt, brainstorm ideas, organize their thinking, work through readings, develop a draft, and revise or edit writing together—even sentence by sentence when that’s useful. The important thing is that the student remains part of the thinking and the work they submit remains their own.
AI and Schoolwork
Students should follow the AI guidelines established by their parents, school, teachers, or homeschool program. When we work on school assignments together, I’ll work within those guidelines.
When Tutoring Isn’t Working
A good tutoring relationship depends on trust. I want students to have a comfortable place to ask questions, make mistakes, try ideas, and learn without feeling as though they are being watched or judged.
If I become concerned that tutoring is no longer helping a student, or that something is getting in the way of productive learning, I’ll talk with the student and parent before making any decisions about continuing. Whenever possible, we’ll first try to figure out what isn’t working and what we can change.
If, after we’ve talked and tried some adjustments, I genuinely don’t believe tutoring is helping the student, I may recommend that we end tutoring rather than continue with something that isn’t benefiting them.
In the rare situation where a student or parent is verbally abusive, threatening, or behaves in a way that makes continuing the tutoring relationship inappropriate, I may end tutoring immediately. Any unused prepaid tutoring will be refunded.
Time Zones & Clock Changes
Because I teach students in both North America and Europe, daylight-saving time occasionally makes our schedules a little interesting. The U.S. and Europe don’t always change their clocks on the same weekend, which can temporarily change the usual time difference.
When that happens, I’ll contact affected families ahead of time so we can confirm the correct lesson time. We’ll figure out what works during those transition weeks and then return to the regular schedule once our clocks catch up with each other.
Questions? Just Ask.
These policies are meant to make tutoring run smoothly, not to cover every situation life can throw at us. If you’re ever unsure about something, email me at [email protected] and we’ll figure it out. You can also visit my FAQ for answers to common questions about tutoring.
