All parents want their children to achieve academically, but knowing exactly how to make that happen can be a tall order. Whether your child is struggling in a class or if you just want some extra support, Raising the Bar’s tutoring/academic coaching services are above the rest. All of our tutors are certified teachers with a minimum of 3 years of experience teaching at top-notch schools in the Houston area. Our tutors are familiar with the demands of today’s educational environment and can help your child successfully meet those challenges.
We have compiled the following list of frequently asked questions regarding our services and the tutor selection process. If you have any questions not found on this page, please feel free to contact us!
All of our tutors are certified, experienced educators, most of whom currently work full time teaching at schools throughout the greater Houston area. As the owner of RTB, I hand-pick each tutor to ensure all members our team are professional, experts in their academic fields, and have a true passion for teaching! Teaching…it’s what we do!
Once a family registers for our services, we send the family information about available teachers in their area, complete with short bios that include the candidates’ educational background, their experience as teachers, and their interests outside of the classroom. We include a picture of each candidate so parents can put a “face to the name” when selecting which tutor they feel would be the best fit for their family. Once that decision is made, we put the tutor in direct contact with the family to establish days/times that work best for everyone. The placement process takes about a week.
For optimal convenience for our families, our tutors come to the students’ home for sessions. However, should families prefer that sessions take place at nearby library or coffee shop, that’s fine, too! If sessions take place in the family’s home, an adult needs to be present.
At Raising the Bar, your child’s success is our top priority. To achieve this success, we strongly recommend weekly tutoring sessions scheduled for a set day and time, even if a family only needs short-term support. As educators, we need that consistency to not only build a strong rapport with the student, but to identify gaps in learning that we can quickly remedy.
For families who are interested in our academic coaching program, it’s very common that our academic coach meets with his/her student twice a week for the first couple of weeks to get a good sense of the student’s specific strengths and weaknesses. This will allow for clear-cut goals to be set and a personalized game plan implemented to achieve success.
In either case, consistency is the key! Therefore we ask that sessions be scheduled and maintained, regardless of the student’s current assignment load. Sure, cancellations will happen from time to time, but we aim for them to be few and far between. Again, your child’s success is our priority…consistency will yield results.
Please note: If you are looking for intermittent tutoring sessions on an “as-need basis”, our tutoring service may not be the best fit for your family as we cannot guarantee we will have a tutor available when you need one. Contact us if you have questions or special circumstances to discuss to see how we can help.
Yes, the family chooses the tutor they feel is the best fit for their child and that tutor works with the student each time so that a rapport can develop. It’s not uncommon for our tutors to develop strong partnerships with their families which only adds to our students’ success.
It rarely happens, however, if a family feels that their child’s tutor isn’t a good fit, we ask that they simply contact us and let us know. We’ll want to get a sense of what is working (and what may not be) so that we can offer other tutoring candidates that may be a better fit. Optimal success for our students is our top priority, therefore if the fit is not perfect, we’ll work to change that.
For students in Pre-K to 5th grade, families simply indicate what subject areas their child needs additional support while registering.
However, for students in 6th grade and above, finding one tutor who can provide support in two or more different content areas may not be possible due to the complexity and detail each subject requires.
Should a student (6th grade or older) need tutoring support in two or more different content areas (which oftentimes requires a separate tutor), there will be a $25 processing fee for each tutoring placement needed. The processing fee pays for the time investment made communicating extensively with our families and our prospective tutors to find the perfect fit for each child.
A typical session runs for 1 hour, however, sessions can be scheduled for longer durations. When working with younger students (Pre-K – 2nd grade), our instructional session run 45 minutes with a 15 minute debrief with the family.
Our tutoring rate is $70 per hour ($75 per hour for CogAT tutoring) and again, our tutors come to each family’s home for optimal convenience.
Families are invoiced Sunday evenings via email for sessions that ran the week prior. We ask that weekly payments be made. Tutoring packages can be purchased at the same hourly rate since any unused sessions are fully refunded. This option works best for busy families who prefer to pay one lump sum instead of paying weekly.
Don’t you hate binding contracts and hidden fees? We do, too! At Raising the Bar, our families are not required to sign contracts for our tutoring/academic coaching services. Although most of our families continue with our services until the end of the current school year (and beyond), families can choose to cancel at any time.
Regarding fees – We do charge a $25 processing fee for each tutoring placement made. This fee covers the time investment made on our end to carefully select RTB candidates that are a “just right fit” for your family.
In addition, we require a $140 deposit for each student to be submitted after the tutoring placement has been made. The deposit is refunded in full after tutoring services have been completed for the school year and when any/all balances have been paid.
Good question. We like to use the 80/20 rule to help explain the difference between the two. With tutoring, approximately 80% of the session is spent providing academic support in specific subject matter (math, science, etc.), whereas the remaining 20% is spent helping the student get organized, establish routines and systems that will lead to optimal success, demonstrating active versus passive study techniques, etc.
With academic coaching, the 80/20 rule also applies, however, the bulk of the session is spent working with the student to create and manage organizational routines, modeling active versus passive studying, demonstrating time-management strategies, etc. The remaining time is spent helping the student with specific homework and assignments.
• “Tutoring” is more geared for those who need support in one or two specific content areas.
• “Academic Coaching” is for those who fare well with the coursework, but may need more support managing the course load.
Our academic coaching program is a process, therefore, there is no set “end”. Our goal as coaches is to work with students over time to enable them to become autonomous in their academic endeavors. As educators, we know each new school year brings new, more difficult academic challenges for students to master (coursework gets more rigorous and long-term projects more the “norm”), therefore the need for academic coaching never really “ends”.
We have found, however, the need for academic coaching support is most common as students transition into each new school year starting in 5th grade until the end of 9th grade. We do work with older kids as well helping them work efficiently, providing more time in their day to have a “balanced life”.
RTB is a huge supporter of the home/school connection. Our tutors/coaches communicate with the family at the end of every session to allow parents to be informed and included in the entire process. Parent involvement and support is vital to the overall success of our programs. Each member of our staff is a positive, experienced educator who can provide parents with clear, specific (and simple) ways to help support their child in between sessions.
We ask that families be ready to begin the tutoring/academic coaching sessions within 2 weeks of the date of registration. Once a family registers for our services, the placement process officially begins and information about available RTB candidates is soon sent to the family. In the event the family is not ready to begin within 2 weeks, an add’l $25 processing fee is assessed for a new search of available RTB tutors/academic coaches, as the availability of our staff after that time can no longer be guaranteed.
If interested in joining the Raising the Bar tutoring team, we’d love to learn more about you! We require our tutors to have excellent communication skills (verbal and written), have at least 3 years of classroom teaching experience, and hold a state teaching certification. If you are passionate about the educational field and you are committed to working closely with students to help them meet the demands of today’s educational challenges, please visit the link below to formally apply.
