Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Hire Full-Time Tutor?

As to homeschooling through high school: we are, with high schools so work beginning around 10, in our case.

Yes, more or less. Part time-- maybe 2-3 hours a day? Honestly, that is all the time that many HG kids actually need in terms of live instructional supports.


Exactly-- I've not been that kind of omniscient educator with DD-- ever. She outstripped THAT ability outside of STEM and a few humanities topics by the time she was about 7yo.

I have a PhD, however, and teaching/curriculum development experience at the post-secondary level and at the primary level. I'm also something of a polymath, with some esoteric and unusual interests way outside my (admittedly fairly broad) base that spans botany through biochemistry through pharmacology through natural products/medicinal chemistry through neuroscience through vet-med through environmental chem through hard core instrumental methods of chemical analysis. All at that post-secondary (or beyond) level, and with the supporting math and modeling skill set. I also had a parent who was a scholar of English literature and a poet; plus a professional pianist and a studio musician and a math professor in my extended family.

So for me and DH, this wasn't a stretch at all. We back-filled with things that DD was interested in, and learned along with her as needed/desired, outsourcing when we got out of our own league.

Like aeh, though-- our family is unusual and with a PG child, we didn't feel like we had a lot of other options in front of us anyway.

One caution that I have about that kind of plan is that it often relies upon pretty significant teaching sensibility, and very definitely the kind of autodidactic mindset and KNOW-HOW that tends to come with an advanced degree. I grew up in that kind of every-moment-a-teachable-one environment, so it's very natural to me to BE that way, just as a lifestyle thing. DH did not, but he's an amazing teacher (truly gifted) when he chooses to be. He's mostly all wrong for our DD in particular, though. It's unfortunate.

I'd also (with all due respect) suggest that many HG children get into insightful territory where an advanced understanding of the subject is a good idea pretty young. Again, I'd look for someone with an advanced degree, and preferably someone with that polymath characteristic of insatiable curiosity.

DD9 undertook a months-long odyssey into Yad Vashem and the Righteous of the Nations that had her digging in the stacks of our local university and requesting interlibrary loans of pschology journals, examining Milgram's methodology... etc. All because she was hunting down altruism in human beings, and looking for just what goes into making a Ted Bundy versus a Raoul Wallenberg. What makes the latter tick, and why do they do what they do? Is it a feature genetically of humanoids? Etc.

My own background in neuroscience and an interest in history led me to be able to GUIDE her to resources, but beyond that, she was mostly on her own. We discussed a lot.

That's life with a PG child, though.

OP, you need to have a prospective tutor identified before making such a plan. Because the success of your plan is heavily dependent on the tutor.

My friend tried it last year for her PG 2e son who was under challenged in school even with acceleration. In her case, it did not work out because the tutor was not taking her son's education "seriously enough" according to her. She expected rigor and advancement in several subjects which did not happen. She was especially unhappy about the science content which was light. But, my friend was hands off in the curriculum design and lesson plans and expected the tutor to take care of it all.
My friend also expected a lot of "extras" like computer programming, art and craft etc which was not happening either. So, she fired her tutor and has hired a nanny to drive her son to various tutors and co-ops and now he seems to be getting the instruction at his level. And I hear that it is a lot cheaper than a full time tutor.
Hope this helps!

One advantage of the private school is the ready made pool of peers or near-peers. I don't know if I could duplicate our school's academics, but there is no practical way for me to duplicate the peer group.

This is what I was going to suggest. DD11 goes to a homeschool co-op with classes at the 8th / 10th grade level, barters babysitting for Chemistry help with one of the instructors (who has a PhD but also two young children), does online stuff at home, and wants to volunteer at an animal shelter. In another 18 months she'll be old enough for a class at our community college with an adult chaperon. We've also looked at local homeschool science labs, outdoor skills school, etc... which don't fit into our schedule right now but are options.

This works for us because DH is self-employed and has a highly flexible schedule. However if we both had office jobs, we'd probably hire a nanny to ferry her around during the day and sit in classes as necessary (we may still as her schedule gets crazier). The nanny would need a good report with your child (not all adults like gifted children), be good at researching educational options and classes, and be organized. But they don't need to know everything.

And for the record, don't assume you can reenter the system at some future point. DD left public midway through 4th and is now accelerated 2-4 years across subjects. I can't see a path to reentering at this time.

This was my thought, or: teachers fresh out of college who don't yet have a full-time teaching position. Or teachers still in college. I earned my Masters in Teaching through WGU, which is online, and would've taken a job like this when I was a student. At the salary you're considering, you would have to find someone who is being financially supported in some other way (like by their spouse), which will definitely make it harder.

There is also this. I have yet to talk with them about how they might handle gifted. http://www.fusionacademy.com/

Let’s draw up a first draft of the job description. Teach 180 8-hour days across nominally 36 weeks. Teach 2 children in our home.

Lets say the private school tuition is $27,500 per child. For 2 children that is $55,000. Plus transportation costs. At a first cut, we could offer $60,000 salary.

So that is 180 x 8 = 1440 hours of work. Call it 1500. So the nominal pay is $40/hr. Without benefits.

So to me, $60K/yr for 3/4 time work (9 months out of 12), doesn’t seem out of line. Of course, this is just a nominal number, derived from private school costs here (SF Bay Area). And as we know, the cost of living here is high. The math would be different in Wisconsin.

This approach is important, and I’m glad to see the strong response on this thread, because in many areas the public schools serve gifted inadequately. (Here in the Bay Area, they put out a lot of poor-mouthing (not entirely unjustified for California schools) along with “well here all our children are gifted”). Or there are limited or no true gifted private schools.

I also think its instructive to compare this option with private schools. If a private school has 10:1 ratio, in a sense one could say a classroom takes in $275,000, and after say $90,000 of that goes to the loaded cost of the teacher, where did the other $185,000 get spent? Just saying. Some of it went to the facility, and some of it went to the administration. With home tutoring, the facility is already paid for, and the parents are acting as administrators. And parents/kids spend less time bus/van/commuting.

We could also contrast (private) school and home tutoring on a qualitative basis. The social aspect would be hard to backfill. (Though this doesn’t really cost the private school anything). Or, my home may not include a science lab and an art room. Or specialist teachers for that.

So this brings us back to the idea above of having a team of specialist tutors rather than one teacher. Using again the above analysis, nominally those tutors can be paid $40/hr, and we can buy 40 hours of specialist tutors every week for 36 weeks before we burn through our $60K budget. I am becoming convinced this may be more workable for the simple reason that its more flexible and less of an all-or-nothing approach. If the math teacher isn’t working out, we forge ahead with the rest of the team and there’s not a lot of disruption while a replacement is found. It sounds promising, the only caveat, remember, we are asking the tutor to teach 2 students not 1. Of course there is some flexibility in general: maybe the gym teacher costs less than the violin teacher; maybe not all 30 or 40 hours a week need to be booked; maybe we go outside to a science class.

Of course, this is all just on the back of an envelope. In the end it would boil down to the general supply and demand (thus price) for this labor category, in my geographic region. And beyond that, to actually finding a specific teacher and negotiating a deal. This is true for the single tutor or the multiple specialists approach. I have to believe that the right teacher would actually relish the idea of teaching just 2 (gifted) kids in a quiet setting, rather than 24 in a public school.

I think though what I would miss from the private-school-for-gifted, is the community of parents and educators and their knowledge and experiences with gifted. The school comes with built-in gifted peers, and does a lot for SEN for gifted. It would be hard to replicate this. Home tutoring is not a total free lunch, because the parents are left with, well its a bit like being your own general contractor on remodeling your house. Though there are benefits to being intimately involved with the details.

I think your numbers sound about right. I just agreed to pay $50 an hour for a private writing tutor, who is a 5th year graduate student. Hopefully once a week for at least this year. I'm not in the Bay Area but it's still an expensive area of CA.

The complication of what you put together is organization more than anything else.

Reading homeschooling forums, it looks like many parents with elementary school age children do not not spend more than 2-3 hours a day on academics. I don't think children can handle 8 hours a day of direct instruction. Teachers are not providing instruction throughout the elementary school days. There is lunch (sometimes also breakfast) and recess, and "drop everything and read" (DEAR), also known as sustained silent reading. In some elementary school classrooms the children start the day by sitting on a rug and talking about what is happening in their lives. There are assemblies.

So you may not need 40 hours a week of tutoring at $40/hour but instead 15-20 hours of tutoring and 20-25 hours of babysitting, unless you do the latter yourself. Many people have observed that schools are in part educational institutions and in part day care centers. With three children and both of us working, we certainly value both aspects.

Good luck with your homeschooling/tutoring experiment.