NWR: teachers/tutoring (long-ish)

I have a parent who has been HOUNDING me to tutor her daughter for the month of August.

I told her that I can't get into my room until the 20th and therefore don't have the materials I would need to effectively tutor her daughter.

She persisted, and said she would be very happy if I could tutor her on the 20th and 27th at 11am, basically making me feel like I have no choice...so I said okay.

Now that I've thought about it, I (as a teacher) don't feel like it would benefit the girl much to have two one-hour sessions with me before school...so I emailed the mom and told her that. I offered my services during the school year, saying that I think for tutoring to be effective it needs to be continuous and structured and that I would be more than happy to reinforce concepts during the school year, but that at this time, I don't feel comfortable doing the two August sessions.

NOT TO MENTION that I am busy getting my room ready those days, and doing last minute summer stuff, going to NY to visit my family, etc.

Basically what I'm wondering is, do you think I'm wrong for cancelling the two makeshift sessions??

phew. thanks! that is EXACTLY what i thought - but i just felt like i was being pressured into it by this mother...

now i feel like i did the right thing :) thanks ladies!!

You were 100% right. She was probably trying to ease her own guilt about not starting sooner. I got a call today too.

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Posted by dedecakes

Absolutely not. I am a teacher and I agree with you. Tutoring a child two times is not going to help the child out. Even if you tutored the girl every day from the 20th till the beginning of school, not much progress is going to be made. 3 times a week, over a 4-6 month period is the most effective. You did the right thing. It would have been like stealing her money if you accepted the job.

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ITA!!!!