Come to each session prepared to take notes. Keep your notes organized in a notebook or on your computer, and over time they will develop into a personalized study guide that will help you review the things we have worked on together. Identify the material you would like help with and make a list of your specific questions about it before our session. Prioritize assignments that are urgent and important to your grade and the parts of them that you find most challenging. When reviewing recent material to identify questions, gather up and look over all assignments and other class materials since our last session, completed or not (or even further back if there are older assignments we have not looked at together). Consider class notes, homework, tests, quizzes, worksheets and other in-class practice, readings, handouts, videos and anything else your teacher gave you. Keep your class materials organized to make this easy. Be honest with yourself about your level of understanding as you look over your assignments, and remember that everybody makes mistakes and struggles with some concepts. Avoid looking at notes or references when working if you would be expected to do so by your teacher on a test. It's always best to ask - even when you had it right all along, this will just help boost your confidence. If you do not have any current/recent uncompleted assignments that have been giving you trouble, there are plenty of other things we can work on. Look back to old units for things you didn't quite understand, and ask your teachers or me for additional practice we can work on together to help you be ready when it comes up again. Look ahead to upcoming assignments so we can begin to introduce you to that material ahead of time, or ask your teachers about how to prepare for what’s next. Ask what you can do for extra credit to help improve your grade! Share what you want to work on with me the day before our session: forward digital copies of assignments, textbooks, and answer keys if you can share them. If not, scan the assignment, take a picture on your phone, or take a screenshot on your computer, and send it to me so I can look it over. Avoid sending too many photos in one email or text as this compromises quality - spread them out if you have more than 3 or 4. Include your specific questions and note the problems/sections you know you will want to work on. If you are unsure about how to share your assignment with me, ask before our session and I can give you some advice.

I typically recommend that we plan sessions for a minimum of an hour because shorter blocks are less inefficient, though I am happy to make time for you if your free blocks are shorter than an hour . Depending on your goals, it may make sense for our meetings to have one of the following patterns: Regular check-ins: If you are looking for help staying on top of class material, regular sessions are the key. I recommend we meet for a minimum of an hour each week. Depending on your situation, an hour a week may not be enough time to explain concepts, review class materials, and do extra practice where necessary, or it may be too much, but it's a good starting point for most and we can adjust from there if appropriate. As-needed meetings: If you only want to meet with me around big assignments/tests or especially challenging topics, I’ll do my best to fit you in. The key is to let me know as far in advance as you can: plan your schedule out and ask for a meeting in the critical days before a big deadline well ahead of time. I will try to be available on short notice when possible and you are welcome to ask, but I am much less likely to be able to find time to meet if you’re reaching out for the first time within a day or two of when you need to see me. Test prep: If you’re preparing for a standardized test, improvement is all about how much time you dedicate to practice. Students who can do longer/more frequent sessions with me and make independent practice part of their routine see better results. An hour of session time with me plus 1-1.5 hours of independent practice per week is a good baseline here; students looking to make a major score improvement or with not much time until their test may need to devote more time to achieve the results they hope for. Outside school work: If you’re studying a subject independent of a school curriculum, the pace of your progress is entirely up to you. Students who are able to spend more time with me and on assignments between sessions will see faster progress, but I am happy to adjust the pace of our work up or down depending on your other commitments if you want to meet more during some periods of time and less during others.

Scheduling a meeting is a commitment to be available and prepared at the agreed upon time, and I expect students to honor their commitments to me as they would any other appointment. Students should come to each meeting prepared to schedule their next meeting. Look at your calendar ahead of time to see when you are available, and check in with parents and coaches to make sure you know when your commitments are. Ask your teachers about what's coming up next so you know when will be a good day to meet. Parents: if you would prefer that I contact you in addition to or instead of your student for purposes of scheduling meetings, please let me know and I will be happy to do that.

It is my first priority to be on time for our sessions, and I expect the same from you. My schedule is usually pretty tight; it will generally not be possible to extend a session so that we can spend as much time together as planned if you are late. In these instances, I still expect full payment for the length of our planned session.

Our time together is valuable, and booking a session represents a commitment to be prepared to meet at the agreed upon time. I expect students and parents to communicate with me as soon as possible about any need to cancel or reschedule our sessions, and I will do the same. At a minimum, I need to be notified 24 hours before our planned session if you need to cancel or reschedule in order to leave me with a reasonable amount of time to try to find another student to take your place. I will contact students approximately 24 hours ahead of a meeting with a reminder for our upcoming appointment - please respond when you get it to let me know you're on track. Parents: if you would like to be included in these messages, let me know and I'll be happy to do that. If a student has made a commitment to meet with me and we are within 24 hours of the planned meeting, and then something else comes up at the last minute (apart from an emergency like an illness or family crisis), I expect them to honor their commitment to me as they would any other appointment, even if it means missing out on something else. If they make a different decision, I understand and respect that prioritizing sometimes creates difficult choices, but in this situation I will need to charge for the cost of the missed session. If a conflict comes up for a planned meeting, I strongly encourage you to make up the missed session as close to the originally planned time as possible. Waiting until your next regularly scheduled session will interrupt our progress and make it difficult to catch up.

I aim to be available to my students for quick questions in between scheduled sessions. If there's something from your homework that's giving you trouble on a day we're not schedule to meet, email me, and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as I can. If I’m not going to have time to respond by the end of the day, or if the question is more appropriate to a full-length session, I’ll let you know. Working effectively on some material requires me to make a more substantial investment of my time in between sessions. For instance, if you want me to help you edit a writing assignment, send it to me in advance, and I will review it before our session so that we can spend our time together most productively. I expect to be paid at my standard rate for any significant investment of my time between sessions that is above and beyond a response to a quick homework question. I will always notify you in advance of my intent to do any amount of billable work outside our sessions and make sure we agree on an estimate of how long it will take and any limits you would like to set. I will keep track of the time and update you at our next session.

In order to meet via videoconference, students will need access to a computer with a webcam and microphone, and an internet connection fast enough for smooth audio and video quality. If your student does not have access to a computer, a tablet is a pretty good alternative and a smartphone can work in a pinch, but a computer is my preference as tablets and phones are generally less able to take advantage of all features of videoconference software, their small screens can make it difficult to see, and they are more frequently subject to technical difficulties. Please do your best to find a quiet space free of distractions with room to spread your work out for our session. To minimize technical difficulties: Restart your computer immediately before our session and make sure to keep your operating system updated. Close all other applications before starting the video call and keep them closed while we work, especially any apps that use a lot of computing power, or apps that use your webcam, speakers, or microphone. Test your camera, microphone, internet connection, and video conference setup before our first meeting by doing a quick practice call with a friend or family member. Aim to work in a location close to your wireless internet access point or plug in to an Ethernet cable to make sure the connection is as good as possible. Download and install the desktop version of the Zoom app on your device and keep it updated to the latest version; don't use the web browser version of Zoom for our calls. If you can, aim to schedule our sessions for times when others at home will not be heavily using your internet bandwidth.

I accept payment by check, PayPal, or Venmo, and my default approach is to collect payment either after each session or monthly. If you would prefer a different arrangement, I’m happy to discuss possibilities. You can find me on PayPal by searching for dahve3d@gmail.com, and you can find me on Venmo by searching for @David-Kruger-4.

I will do my best to communicate with you about your student’s progress. It helps if we have a conversation up front about the results you’re most interested in, that way I know what to focus on. Updates will generally come by email, please let me know if you would prefer I contact you some other way. I do my best to regularly solicit feedback, but if you want to alert me of an area of concern, talk about the schedule, request that we change our approach, or anything else, feel free to get in touch any time.