Tim Tibbitts

When I left a teaching job I loved to be home with my young children, I was worried I’d really miss the classroom. And then I had the good fortune of meeting Rory, my first private student. Almost instantly, Rory helped me to see that the one-on-one nature of tutoring would allow me to teach each student in the ways that best helped him or her to make sense of the material.

Before long, more and more parents came to me seeking help for hardworking kids who were nonetheless struggling in school. Increasingly, these requests were in areas outside my expertise. So in 2006, in order to help as many kids as possible, I invited a small group of talented teachers to join me in launching a new, comprehensive tutoring service. Our name came from a thank-you note I received from a mother that summer: “You don’t just see a struggling student,” she said. “You really see the whole kid.”

At the heart of what we do is the individual student. When one of our private tutors sits down with one of our students, magic happens. All the tutors on our team share a craving for those “light bulb” moments when students see beyond the work due tomorrow to the skills they are learning and the knowledge they are gaining, through their own hard work.

I find it very gratifying that parents see fit to call us back over and over, sometimes even twelve or eighteen months after the end of a tutoring engagement, because they know that they can count on me to listen carefully, to work with them to develop a sound action plan, and if needed, to match them with a great-fit tutor.