By Janet Menosky Smith

​Are you looking for a simpler billing practice and a more consistent income from month to month? If so, a monthly tuition structure may be a good choice for your tutoring practice. Read more on how it can be done and see if it's right for you.

When I started tutoring, I used an hourly-based structure for charging clients.
The basic structure for most clients was 2, 1-hour sessions per week at XX dollars per session. I would send an invoice to be paid in advance of each month. (Paying 1 month in advance is another practice I highly recommend.)
I kept one day open for make-ups and gave families 2 options for make-up times when they missed, or I would still earn the fee.

In many ways, this worked well, but the two biggest downsides to the hourly structure were:
1.     There were more sessions called off and rescheduled. When people can reschedule, they do and even though I had it structured into my practice, it became increasingly difficult as I added more students.
2.     The income could vary widely each month, some months (like when there was a Christmas break or my vacation) it would be lower than usual and when a given month had five weeks, my families would feel the pinch of a significantly higher bill.

I wanted a more consistent income and simpler billing solution. This led me to get advice from fellow tutor Dite Bray of Ladder Learning Services, who shared with me the basic chart of how they structured a monthly tuition for her tutoring business. 
​
I've created an example of the chart but with numbers I put into it for the purpose of illustration:
​
To create a chart like the one here, you would first put in your basic hourly rate for the number of sessions per week you typically do. For the sake of illustration, I put in $50 per hour for 2 hours a week.

You then determine how many weeks per year that you want to charge for tutoring. This example has 45 weeks per year. What this does is build 7 weeks off each year directly into the tuition rate.

So, in this case, let’s say the tutor has allowed 2 weeks for holidays and Christmas break, 2.5 weeks for tutor days off and vacation, plus 2.5 weeks off for student days off and vacation.

Note that if a student tutors twice a week, then 2.5 weeks off equals the three tutoring sessions off that they would have during that time. 
​
You also have to decide how much of a discount you want to give to families when they add more sessions per week, then put those amounts in the hourly rate column.

In this chart, the price for reducing to 1 hour a week actually increases the amount per hour, since there are less sessions per week.

To determine the monthly and yearly rate use the following formula for each row. For example:
$50 (hourly rate) x 2 (#sessions per week) = $100 (charge per week)
$100 (per week) x 45 (weeks per year) = $4500 (yearly price)
$4500 (yearly price) ÷ 12 (months) = $375 monthly tuition

With this structure, when a family calls off, they simply are using one of their built-in days. When they take a week off for vacation or summer camp, they are doing the same. If they go over that, they understand that they will lose paid-for sessions.

As a tutor, you also have built in days or weeks you can take, without it affecting your income. There is no rescheduling unless both parties want to do so, to preserve a day off for another time.

This monthly tuition structure has worked beautifully for me in simplifying billing and making my income more stable. When a family has to take a day off, they just do so, without the need to reschedule, which is also nice.

I have found that families also like the predictability of knowing what their charge will be each month, and also knowing that they already have built-in days off that they can use, and that holidays are also accounted for within it.

A bonus I didn’t expect is that families rarely cancel or reschedule. They guard their days off like gold and use them for the most important things, like a family vacation or an unavoidable absence.

In the next posting on this subject, I’ll cover some common questions including: How do you handle all the Monday holidays, that impact students who are scheduled for that day? What about summers? How do you handle emergencies like sessions being cancelled because there is no Internet service?

Yours in Reaching & Teaching,
Janet

By Janet Menosky Smith

​Tutors often struggle with issues surrounding payment policies and dealing with late or sometimes non-payment for services. Setting expectations using a written tutoring agreement with clear policies can help you avoid many pitfalls.
Payment Policies - A Key Part of Your Tutoring Agreement

Tutors often struggle with issues surrounding payment policies and dealing with late or sometimes non-payment for services. Setting expectations using a written tutoring agreement with clear policies can help you avoid many pitfalls.
As a tutor, you may have your own expectations, but unless they are clearly spelled out, even your best clients will have their own set and misunderstandings, or occasionally feeling taken advantage of, are more likely to happen. Clearly spelling out the policies of your practice will help to avoid these scenarios.

Agreement – not Contract
I like to use the word “agreement” as opposed to “contract,” because I am not a big tutoring company that signs clients up for a large up-front amount and commits them to 4 to 6 months at a time. I charge month-to-month, and my clients can cancel at any time, however, I do have policies in place to protect my income from unexpected changes. Here are some of them:

Payment Policies
The agreement begins by noting the days and times agreed to by both parties for when tutoring will take place. The agreed price is also listed. In my case, I charge monthly tuition, but it used to be a per lesson price.
The biggest protection and stress-avoider I have regarding payment is my requirement that clients pay at the beginning of the month for each month’s tutoring sessions. My wording is as follows:

Tuition for the entire month will be paid on the first day of the month. Invoices are sent via email. You may pay online via direct link, arrange online payment via your bank, or mail a check to the address above.
Tutoring is suspended if not paid by the first session of the month, before the first scheduled tutoring session, until payment is made.
Invoices are sent by email 1 week before the first of each month.
A $10 late fee will be added to next month’s bill if payment is not received on the first.

I don’t believe I’ve ever actually charged the fee, but it’s in the agreement to make the point that on-time payment is expected.

This policy works whether you charge by the session or do a monthly tuition charge. I added the sentence on requiring payment before even one session is taught to my original policy because I would have occasional late payers that would always need reminded a day or two after the month began. Now, I can just send a reminder the day before with the wording, “Hi ____, I notice I haven’t received payment yet, and the new month is starting tomorrow. I want to make sure it’s taken care of so that _____ doesn’t miss any sessions. Thanks!”

More recently, I’ve avoided invoicing by email and needing to send a reminder email because I began billing clients using a Venmo business account. I can press a button to “send reminder,” and I usually get an immediate response.
Using a payment app like Venmo or similar services also works well because clients receive a text and they can reply and pay right from their phone, which is often the way many of us do business these days.

While I haven’t done this, another option is having client payments automatically deducted each month. PayPal offers an option to set this up. Then, clients are automatically charged each month without the need to send a payment request.

A final protection some tutors include is requiring a deposit equal to one- or two-weeks tutoring charge. This provides a cushion of protection from last-minute decisions to end services.
For my practice, I request two weeks’ notice before the next payment is due and use the time to do a progress evaluation and provide a final written summary. Here is my wording:

If you plan to discontinue services, please provide two weeks’ notice before next month’s payment is due, so I can do a final wrap-up, progress evaluation, and provide you with a final written progress report. If less than 2 weeks’ notice is given, you have the option to pay for an additional two weeks of services for the final wrap-up, progress evaluation and written report.

My clients want this final summary and progress report, so they plan around giving me the two weeks’ notice, though in most cases, the end of tutoring is discussed well in advance of two weeks.

These clear payment expectations and policies have eliminated issues surrounding lateness or non-payment for services already received. They can be personalized to fit your specific practice needs, but ultimately, communicating your own policies in writing will establish a professional and positive understanding with your clients.​
​
Yours in reaching & teaching,
Janet

By Janet Menosky Smith

​Family vacations, summer camps, Monday holidays and Internet disruptions can all wreak havoc on our tutoring schedule. Today we offer just a few ideas on ways to handle each of these things.

In the previous blog post, I shared the structure I use for creating a monthly tuition-based tutoring model for year-round tutoring. Since I offer reading intervention tutoring for students with dyslexia, it makes sense to encourage families to keep tutoring regularly during the summer.

But sometimes families have vacation plans, summer camps and other activities packed into their schedules, and you may also have some extra times you want to take off.

One solution to maintain consistency, but add flexibility, is to offer a set number of sessions in a summer tutoring package.
For example: most summer vacations from school last about 2 ½ months or 10 weeks. If you allow for 1 week for a student vacation and 1 week for your vacation/time off, that would leave 8 weeks of instructional time. Multiply that by 2 times per week for a package of 16 sessions for XX total price.

You could add further consistency and flexibility by letting families know that if they are gone for a few weeks, they can do extra sessions in the weeks they are home. Many tutors use a scheduler such as the one in Tutor Bird or Zoom to allow their families to find open time slots and select their schedule. Let them know that they lose any sessions they don’t use.

If you like a more flexible summer schedule such as this, you can modify your tuition or per-hour structure to a school-year length, rather than a full year structure.
With the built-in time off in my yearly tuition set-up, it has worked for me to keep a year-round structure, but the summer package might be a good option for tutors who want more scheduling leeway.

Here are answers to a few more questions:

How do you handle all the Monday holidays that students scheduled for that day will miss, while other students never get the same holiday off?
When I have a Monday holiday scheduled as off, I will then also schedule a Tuesday after the holiday off for non-Monday students. I do make these days optional, so if a family still wants to meet, I will be there.
Also, I do use discretion in allowing some Monday holidays (such as Presidents Day) to be optional. I still work and families can choose whether or not to take one of their days off.

How do you handle last minute emergencies, such as the Internet not working?
If the Internet is down in my or my family’s area, then I will try to reschedule, so neither of us lose one of our days off. If the Internet issue is something the family needs to address, I usually allow one reschedule, but after that, each disruption will count as one of their days off.* For illness, I use my day off or have the family use one of their days. For most circumstances, a built-in day off is used but I always allow for consideration of the situation before offering a reschedule.
I hope this gives you some ideas on how to make your own summer tutoring plans!
​
Yours in Reaching & Teaching,
Janet

By Janet Menosky Smith

For the past 3 years, I’ve created and run the Reading Outreach Tutoring Program two days a week during the school year. As we begin our fourth year, we have changed location and uncovered some significant reading needs in a group of children who attend an after-school program.

For the past 3 years, I’ve created and run the Reading Outreach Tutoring Program 2 days a week during the school year. I’ve trained volunteer tutors and we’ve served a small group of students each year. Last year, I volunteered as a mentor at ​Sonward Youth Program’s​ Elevate Lunch and Learn program. I could see that Director Kim Louis and Sonward already had an established after-school program with 25-50 kids attending each week. Since Sonward was already serving a large number of kids, it made sense to me to approach Kim about offering the reading program to kids who need it in the after-school program.

During September, I tested the reading levels of ten students at Sonward, to see who would qualify for reading help. Three of the students tested high enough to not need intervention. However, seven out of ten, or 70% of the students, tested far below grade level and urgently needed help. Below are their results.

Student*      Grade         Grade Level of Reading                             
KP                3                 K/1st End of K - beginning of 1st grade
HJ                3                 1st End of 1st grade
TJ                3                  below K                                                        
CN               4                  2                                                                    
FD               5                  K/1st End K/beginning 1st
TC               5                  K/1st End K/beginning 1st
NM              8                  below K                                                          

I assessed students using the QRI Graded Word Lists and Passages – to determine their approximate grade level in reading, as well as their accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. I also administered the CORE Phonics Assessment to identify their knowledge of key phonics/reading patterns. All the students demonstrated gaps in their basic phonics/decoding knowledge and while they had varied success with simple CVC words (i.e. words like: sip, mat, rut) no one was able to successfully complete reading all the words with blends or digraphs (i.e. words like: stop, silk, wash, match).

In the (now) 4 years of offering this program, I have not seen so many students at such low levels in their reading progress. The results also suggest that there are likely many more kids in the after-school program that would benefit from reading help.
​
As we begin working with these students this school year, we do so realizing that the need is great. Our small group of volunteer tutors and teen mentors are poised to begin making a difference and their work has already begun. I’ll continue to keep you updated on what we are doing, how we are doing it, and the progress being made as the year progresses.
Yours in reaching & teaching,​
Janet

By Janet Menosky Smith

​Zoom has been the platform of choice for many online tutors. Recently though, Koala Go has emerged as an alternative, offering tutors another choice for connecting and teaching online.
A Closer Look at a New Online Teaching Platform
Confession time: I admit I’m biased.
I switched from using Zoom for my online tutoring to Koala Go a few years back and for me, it was a great decision. Let me share with you my reasons so you can consider if it’s a good choice for you.

Zoom has been the platform of choice for many tutors meeting their students online. Recently though, Koala Go has emerged as an alternative, offering tutors another choice for connecting and teaching online.

Koala Go was created specifically for teachers who work online. As such, it is tailored to the needs of online teachers and tutors, versus Zoom, which is primarily a business conferencing tool.

Koala Go takes the ability to offer practice games and activities to a new level by offering not only a whiteboard and screen sharing browser for your materials, but a 3-D playground where you and your student become avatars and engage in learning activities and games in a virtual environment.

Other features of Koala Go include:

• Ease in setting up and inviting students.
• Appealing to young students and adaptable to teens or adults.
• Control can be shared on most devices your students might use including iPads, tablets, Chromebooks or laptop computers.
• Ease of creating and saving separate classrooms or folders (called activities) for each student. In Zoom, you need a separate platform, such as One Note, to organize and keep your students’ information.
• 24/7 live tech support at the touch of a button, right from your lesson. This is HUGE and unheard of in platforms like Zoom. I’ve reached out to live support a number of times when I’ve needed help.
• Ease in importing your ready-made PDF files, PowerPoints, image files and other teaching materials you’ve already created.
• Ease of integrating teaching websites for specific content or programs.

Stay tuned to the next few blog posts, where I will take you on a deeper dive into how I use each component of Koala Go in my online classroom.

Yours in Reaching & Teaching,
Janet
​
P.S. If you decide you're ready to sign up with Koala Go, use this affiliate link to save 20% on your first 12 months or 1 year membership:
TEACH WITH KOALA GO SIGN UP LINK - SAVE 20%

By Janet Menosky Smith

​The idea of meeting students online while experiencing the freedom of traveling is powerful, but traveling while tutoring presents its own set of challenges as well. Here are some tips for making it work and avoiding dreaded downtimes and work interruptions.

On July 1st, I packed my marshmallow roasting sticks and my computer (and a few other things!) and embarked on a month-long camping trip. My plan was to enjoy the outdoors and meet my students online, while enjoying a new environment.
I’ve been away for up to 2 months at a time and continued to work with my students. It’s definitely one of the best reasons to tutor online!
However, I’ve also discovered that most campgrounds have poor internet service, chiefly because the connection is not strong to begin with, and it is being shared by many other campers. There are options you can explore and that many camper/wanders use:

Option 1 – The Dream Option – Your campground has excellent Wi-Fi! Rejoice and make merry! This is truly wonderful when it happens. Usually though, it’s not the case, or at the very least, you still need a backup in case of outages.

Option 2 – The Hybrid Option – using the campground Wi-Fi plus your own phone carrier’s hotspot as needed. This option is good if you are not a long-term or full-time wanderer/camper but traveling for a week or up to a month. While the campground Wi-Fi is often weaker, sometimes it works well enough during slower times, such as weekday mornings through early afternoon, when few other people are online. If you can use the campground Wi-Fi at times, you can save on using your hotspot data allowance.

Option 3 – Using your phone carrier’s hotspot. This option works well if your phone carrier (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile) has good reception where you are staying. You also need to be aware of how much data per month your carrier allots to you on your plan and consider adding more data if needed. When I tutor online, I use about one gigabyte (GB) of data per session, so a plan that offers twenty-five gigabytes will cover about 25 sessions a month. This may not be enough if you tutor more than 4-6 hours per week. Research what other plans are offered and consider upgrading if this will be a primary internet source.

Option 4 – Hybrid hotspot and public internet site. This can work if there is a coffee shop, library, or other public space with strong internet. There are cons to working in a public space, (See my recent post: The Traveling Tutor - part 1) but if you find a good spot, this can work for short-term trips.
The options mentioned so far work mostly for shorter trips, but if you want a longer-term-travel solutions, camper/wanders have found options like these:

Option 5 – Starlink – Starlink is a satellite-based internet service that has the advantage of working anywhere a satellite signal can reach you. This can include places where phone signals are weak or non-existent. It can be a good option for those with significant or long-term travel, especially because there’s an initial investment of $499 for the hardware needed to receive its signal. The monthly cost for the recommended RV is $150. The con with Starlink is that many camper/wanderers find they need to have a clear view of the sky, with no trees or other items obstructing the hardware plate. Weather can also play a factor in reception.

Option 6 – T-Mobile Internet Away Plan. Until recently, T-Mobile’s home internet also worked anywhere you traveled. Many campers took advantage of this and got good internet service wherever they went, if there was a good phone signal. Recently though T-Mobile has cracked down on this by restricting access away from home and offering a monthly Internet Away Plan specifically for those on the go.

Option 7 – Travelfi – Travelfi was created specifically for RV travelers and works by tapping into the available cellular towers of any provider, wherever you go. You purchase a Travel-fi device (starting at $109) and Wi-Fi plan to get started. One advantage of Travelfi is that you can stop the plan anytime you don’t need it and pay only when you are on the road.

Option 8 – FMCA Tech-Connect - For the price of membership ($50) plus an activation fee, you can get truly unlimited full hot spot access for $50 per month. This YouTube video explains how it works: The Best Unlimited Internet for RVs.
​
In the end, it’s not one size fits all.
There are many options out there. The best one for you depends on how much you travel, where you go and how much internet access you need. Doing a search on YouTube using phrases like, “The best internet options for RV travel,” will yield many good options to consider. There really isn’t one best answer since there are many so many different ways to wander and travel while you tutor. May you wander and tutor well!
​
Yours in reaching & teaching,
Janet

By Janet Menosky Smith

I’ve had a few travel scenarios that presented major challenges I needed to overcome, to successfully meet my students. 
​One particular situation helped me discover a go-to hack I can use when the internet reception is lousy...
A close family member had a serious medical issue while staying at their summer cottage on a lake about three hours from my home. I needed to help them find the right provider for treatment and help until they were on their feet again.
​With my tutoring tote packed, I arrived and discovered that there was no internet service at the cottage and poor cell phone reception. Plan A (use the household internet and Plan B (use my hotspot at the house) were dashed immediately.

​On to plan C – find a convenient local spot with good internet. I found a coffee shop with decent Wi-Fi (35 MB download and 20 MB upload.) It also had a nice upstairs room to work in.

​This spot worked well for my early morning student. However, when I would arrive for any tutoring after 11 a.m., the room was filled with other online coffee drinkers.
​Sometimes I couldn’t find a private table and had to beg-explain to someone that I would be tutoring, and would it be okay if I sat at their table.
​Also, with so many others using the connection, the available bandwidth often was seriously diminished. The cell reception was weak enough there also that my hotspot wasn’t any better.

​A few times the available signal was so weak, that I while I could connect with the student, there was terrible lagging and audio. First, we tried turning off just our video cameras, but the sound quality was still poor.
​Finally, we both had to turn off our sound AND video to stop the on-screen lagging. We used our cell phones for sound and just went without seeing each other.

​Not ideal, but it did work, and we were able to tutor. That’s an emergency tutoring hack you can tuck away in your tutoring tip box in case you need it someday!
​For the week that I was there, no other good options were available, and I just had to make do with my coffee shop office.

​It wasn’t ideal, but at least I enjoyed some delicious lattes!
​Yours in reaching & teaching,
Janet

By Janet Menosky Smith

Anna: A Student's Story
Welcome to the space where I hope to share with you helpful tips and tools to help you start teaching online or to make your online tutoring experience more effective and engaging! 

I'm excited to share with you a little glimpse into The Reading Outreach Tutoring Program - a volunteer-led tutoring intervention that is supported by The Online Tutor Toolkit. Here is one student's story...meet Anna... 

Anna joined our Reading Outreach tutoring program in October of 2021, when she was starting second grade. 
Her First Day of School picture from that year shows her clutching her mask with a hopeful smile, after 2 years of disrupted and at-home school during the COVID epidemic.
When we first assessed Anna, she was reading at the mid-first grade level, perhaps thanks to her less-than-ideal academic start. 

Anna's mom Alaina* brought her faithfully to the after-school reading program twice a week, for two program semesters: from October through December, and January through April of that school year.
She worked 1-on-1 with a trained volunteer tutor, using a structured reading intervention. She was also receiving consistent reading instruction five days a week at her school for the first time.

When we checked Anna's progress again in March, she had gained over 1.5 years of progress and was reading at the independent level for her grade! 
​
Thanks to her hard work, and some extra support, she is now in 4th grade and a high honor roll student.
Great job, Anna!!
Janet

By Janet Menosky Smith
​
Being able to travel and still tutor is the ultimate benefit of working online. But, it's not always as easy to do both as it seems. Here are a few scenarios with some tips and things to watch out for.

It’s summer and for many online tutors, vacation or travel time is on the horizon. One of the advantages of tutoring online is that you can tutor from anywhere you can access the internet. With so much of the world seemingly connected, that seems simple enough to do. However, it isn’t always as easy as you might think. Here are some scenarios you might run into while you’re away from home…

1. Staying with family or friends. This is the most reliable option, if your host has a good home internet connection. Usually, private homes have reliable access and a quiet place where you can work. If you know you need to be online, ask your host ahead of time how strong their connection is, and if they know the download and upload speed. If they don’t know it and they’re willing to check, have them go to www.speedtest.net from their home computer and see what speeds it registers.

2. Hotel Internet connections. Most complimentary Internet connections in hotels are adequate, but make sure you check the connection speed from your hotel room ahead of your tutoring time. Sessions usually work with speeds of 10-15 megabytes download and 5-6 megabytes upload. This is not ideal, but you can usually manage. Tip: You may experience lagging during online sessions. If so, try teaching onscreen without your video, to free up limited resources.
Another tip: If the connection in your room is weak, see if the hotel has a business center or lobby with a stronger connection.

In fact, no matter where you are and what your first Internet connection option is, you always need a backup plan. I’ll talk about that a little later in this post.
3. Coffee shops, fast food restaurants, libraries, or other public spots with free internet. As nice as it sounds to teach in a quaint coffee shop while sipping on your latte, public places pose a few more challenges. The internet connection can range from stellar to barely there, and you almost always have a less private place to work, with conversations and piped music in the background. Libraries often have limited hours and want patrons to be quiet. If a number of other people are online and streaming video or conferencing virtually, it can use up the available bandwidth fast and affect the quality of your session. I only use these locations when I don’t have a more private and reliable option.

What is a good backup plan and why do you need one? I have traveled enough to know that I can never absolutely count on my first plan to use the internet in a private home, hotel, or public place. My chief backup plan is to have a hotspot on my phone. Then, if another internet connection isn’t available or is weak, as long as there is good cell phone reception, my phone's hotspot usually does the job.

The other key thing I do to make sure my online lessons will go as planned is to scout where I will be teaching ahead of time, if possible. Evaluate potential places by checking the internet speed on your phone. See if there is a quiet corner or semi-private place where you can work if you must be in a lobby or public place. Don’t assume you can plop down at a coffee shop table at the last minute, and everything will work just fine.
​
Next time, I’m going to share some of my craziest traveling and tutoring challenges, and how I solved them. Because, no matter how prepared you try to be, sometimes things happen! Stay tuned! You won't want to miss it!
Yours in reaching & teaching,
Janet

By Janet Menosky Smith

​We all know that our online students love the practice and learning games we use with them, and we strongly suspect that it enhances their learning, but is there research backed evidence to support that?

Good news! The topic of using games to enhance learning has become a hot research topic in recent years and the findings so far strongly support that using games is a highly effective strategy for helping your students to learn.

A recent NIH-funded study on The Impact of Digital Educational Games on Student’s Motivation for Learning reported positive outcomes on the use of digital games. Researchers reported that, “personalized digital educational games improve students' learning outcomes, satisfaction, and overall enjoyment of the learning process.”

They went on to state that using games motivated students during teaching and helped students to be more engaged in the learning process. It makes sense. If students are more motivated and engaged during learning, they will have better learning outcomes and overall, enjoy learning more.

Neurologist turned teacher Judy Willis, MD., points out that playing games releases dopamine, which creates a powerful pleasure response.
Dr. Willis reports, “Games insert players at their achievable challenge level and reward player effort and practice with acknowledgement of incremental goal progress, not just final product. The fuel for this process is the pleasure experience related to the release of dopamine.”

As more tutors work online with students, more sites for finding or creating learning games have proliferated and we have more options than ever before to offer our students engaging practice. Sites such as Wordwall, Jeopardy Labs and Quizlet offer high-quality tools tutors can use to easily create games and activities.

Teachers have also become more adept at creating their own games and sharing or offering them to each other in online groups and marketplaces.
​
The takeaway? Keep adding and playing lesson-focused teaching and practice games. You’re not “wasting time.” In fact, you’re making the time spent even more productive, not to mention more fun, for both student and tutor!​
Yours in reaching & teaching,
Janet