Summer Tutoring Part 1: Getting Started

Week 4: My favorite summer side-gig

As a teacher, summers off are a definite perk. If you are looking for a way to use your summer to make some extra cash during your time off, tutoring is a fantastic (and fulfilling) option. I have been spending a lot of time lately preparing for my own summer tutoring and I wanted to take these next two weeks to write for teachers who are considering taking on some tutoring clients over the summer. This week I focus on getting started: questions to ask yourself at the start and marketing yourself. Next week will be all about the planning aspect of tutoring, including parent surveys, student goal setting, lesson plans, and more! I will also go through what a typical tutoring session looks like. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Step one to any tutoring side-gig is acquiring students to teach.

Laying the Foundation for your Summer Tutoring

It is important to do a little ground work before promoting yourself as a tutor. You need to think about and plan for the basics of your tutoring, parents will be asking you right away about these. Here are some questions to think about and plan for at the start.

How much time am I willing to commit to tutoring?

I personally like to keep my summer tutoring to a part time, 15-20 hours a week. I want to keep myself busy but I also still want time to relax and recover after a long school year. Don't get me wrong, a 40 hour week of tutoring could bring in a lot of cash, but boundaries are important. Think about what is best for you, this is an important decision and needs to be mostly consistent for the entire summer, you can always add more tutoring slots, but once you've booked with families it's best not to take any away.

How much money do I want to charge for sessions?

You are a professional offering personalized tutoring, don't sell yourself short. It is appropriate to charge anywhere from $30-$60/hour depending on your experience. Within this comes another question to think through, are your rates negotiable? One of the first things parents will ask you is how much you charge. It is important to feel confident in your rates, as this will present you as more professional and reliable.

What subjects/grades/topics are you wanting to tutor?

Think about the teaching experience you have. Do you want to teach only students in your current grade(s)? Or are you willing to go up or down a year or two? For example, I am a fourth grade teacher and I offer tutoring for students who are upcoming third, fourth, and fifth graders. I have experience teaching both third and fourth so I feel confident in knowing where students need to be starting third grade all the way through ending fourth grade, ready to enter fifth. You will be planning lessons specific to the needs of your students. Being confident and familiar with state standards for the grades-ranges you are tutoring is crucial. The more options you can comfortably and confidently provide, the larger your client base will be. This will increase the number of inquires and bookings you are able to get. Choose wisely.

What area/school students are you willing to take on?

Are you planning on only tutoring students from your current school? Or are you looking for a larger clientele and trying to connect with students in your local area or entire district? Since I am only tutoring part time, I try to take on students from my school only. This also helps me when it comes to location, it is easier to schedule multiple sessions in one day without doing miles of driving in between. This leads us to our next question:

Where do I want to hold tutoring sessions?

There are many different options when it comes to your location for tutoring. Some locations I have done sessions at in the past are student homes, local libraries, local daycare centers, even a grocery store! I personally prefer to hold sessions at students' homes because this is a place where they are most comfortable. It also works for me because I only take students from the school I teach at. My families are all in the same neighborhood so I can easily get from one house to the next. There are some drawbacks to this however, because it can be a place students are easily distracted. Also, not everyone is comfortable going to their student's homes, and that's okay!

Another great option for sessions is to choose a central location for all your students. This is where libraries fit in perfectly. You can see if your local library has a room set aside with tables meant for meetings and study groups. If you have all your students meet you at the library there is no commute between sessions. The drawback to choosing a library however is that you cannot anticipate how busy/loud these areas will get. During summers many libraries have extra programs and classes going on during the day. Check the library's website so you are aware of events happening during your session times.

I have also done tutoring at a daycare center in the past, the student was in summer camp, as their parents were working during the day. I pulled them from their activities for our session and sent them back when we were done. It is important to check with the daycare center on this one though to have their permission to conduct your tutoring at their facility. You will also want to check that they have a quiet room you can use, if you've ever been into a daycare during summer you know they can get pretty loud.

And lastly, the grocery store story! Our local grocery store has a cafe area with tables and chairs where anyone can sit. I tutored while mom did her grocery shopping. Although it's not my most recommended location, this shows that you could tutor just about anywhere!

Now that you've taken the time to plan out the basics of your tutoring sessions, you are ready to start marketing!

Marketing Yourself

There are many, many ways to let parents know you are taking on tutoring over the summer. Before I go any further though, you MUST check your contract with your district to see the policy. It most cases it is ILLEGAL to use district resources for your tutoring business if you are getting paid to do it. This includes district purchased curriculum, books, supplies and even your work email! Yes, that means it is often NOT okay to send a blanket email to your entire class letting them know you are tutoring for the summer.

Set Up an Email

This being said, it is important to set up a separate email you plan to use for communications. This could be your personal email or a new one you create all together. I have a totally separate email for my tutoring because I don't want students and parents to know my personal email address, especially because I could have them in my class one day! Having a different account like this (I use google) is also helpful because you can keep your tutoring lessons and resources completely separate from your classroom ones.

Make a Flyer

I made my flyer on Canva! It is the PERFECT resource for this. It is free to use and there are already some preloaded tutoring templates available. You could also use photoshop, powerpoint, or word to create your flyer. Try to make it look clean and professional, this will attract people to it and could be the difference in whether or not you get a client! Be sure to include some of the main details of your tutoring, such as the grades and subjects you are offering tutoring for and your own personal experience. I do not post the cost of my tutoring on the flyer, but that is up to you! Other things you could post on your flyer are tutoring locations and days of availability. I have found that less is more when it comes to flyers or ads like this. Just give the basics and have parents contact you for the rest of the information. This will give you the opportunity to start building relationships with potential families.

When and Where to Post your Flyers

In my experience the best time to start promoting your tutoring is about a month or two before school gets out. This is around the same time parents are looking for summer camps and activities. If you post too soon, you might not have many people thinking that far ahead and if you post too late, many potential clients will already have found other tutors. The timing is important.

This year the only place I posed my flyer was our school's parent facebook page. I was able to fill all my slots from this one post alone. Many neighborhoods have facebook pages you could post on. Another way to get the word out about your tutoring is to check if your school has a tutoring list that parents can access. Make sure your name and contact get on the list! Printing your flyer and posting it on neighborhood message boards is also a great way to get your name out there. Some coffee shops may have message boards you could use too. You can also communicate to parents via word of mouth, I would especially let the parents who have asked about tutors in the past know you are available. You might talk with your struggling student's parents if you feel summer tutoring would be beneficial to them. This is getting dangerously close to crossing the school/tutoring line, so I suggest talking with your administration about the best way to handle this. They also might have more ideas for you on ways to promote yourself!

There is no one right way to start your tutoring side-gig. If you have other ideas or points I missed, comment them below! Next week's post will be all about how I manage the planning for sessions and what a sample tutoring session might look like. I will post a link here to part 2 soon. Good luck on starting your tutoring!