tutor

elementary school teacher

teacher

mathematics teacher

Huntington Learning Center

Honestly, when I started here I kinda enjoyed it. I loved working with the kids. I still do for the most part. There are some that melt my heart. However, this management of my location is absolutely bonkers. Unorganized, paranoid and secretive. They want everything to appear alright, peachy and organized for the parents but they just do not have it together. The main director of my location I don't believes sleeps, because you will hear from her at every hour of the day. The schedule goes out Thursday anytime from 12 am - 5am. She would text me all the time changing my schedule, changing it back, asking if I can stay longer this week. The amount of times that I was "asked" to stay longer than I was supposed to either because someone of else was even scheduled when they should have been or called out is out of this world. On top of that, I've been scheduled for the wrong times, out of my availability and given the wrong information before and they didn't even apologize for wasting my time. They said "well you can go get a cup of coffee and come back". 
They are stingy with pay as well. When I started, you would only be paid for the hours you were working with students (including a break between two students). They do not pay you for the time that you get there early, even if they schedule you 15 minutes early, and they do not pay you for the time that you are cleaning up and disinfecting afterwards. Now, they tend to me for about 15 minutes of extra time if I stay for a total of 30 minutes extra during a week. 
They also had a tendency of scheduling you with students who need help in a certain topic/area that you have already discussed previously with them that you know NOTHING about. Which makes it incredibly difficult to help tutor a student when you are trying to learn it for the first time as well. 
Huntington is also out of date. The materials are old and overused and not particularly helpful, especially for older students. We are also missing half of the books that the program calls for. 
This jobs is filled with so much red tape. You've go to follow their program, you can't differentiate for different students without the the director saying that's what needs to be done. You can't change curriculum material. The director and day-to-day manager are always watching over your shoulder. The day-to-day manager is always interfering in lessons that I have with students. Students who are easily distracted should not have someone keep going back up to them and distracting them more with questions that do not pertain to anything I'm teaching them. It makes it incredibly hard to gain back their focus over and over again. He also seemed to struggled to let them be kids. This might be a personal thing to me, but I believe that in order to get kids to be as focused and comfortable as they can, as long as their doing the work I need them to, they can kinda sit, stand or do whatever makes them comfortable. On multiple occasions, though, I've had him interrupt my lessons to walk to a student and say "sit down" or something else that really isn't important enough. 
They are also incredibly secretive with material and practices at the center. For instance, every session with a student we are supposed to write up session notes. These are in the program and generally, the director is supposed to read them but I don't know if she really does. I had a parent request to see my notes once after I brought them up in conversation with her. I thought that was a perfectly reasonable request. It's her child. She's paying a lot of money for this service. She should see my notes. I was told that that was not possible and that the director "had spoke with [this parent] before about this" and would "need to have a conversation with her again". Which is a little ridiculous. Likewise, they don't trust their employees. On Sundays, its just the employees. No director, although she hasn't been in the center consistently for the last 6 months, and no day-to- day manager. One day she text me saying "where are you. I see [another teacher] in the little room but where are you?" Meanwhile, I was in the office which does not have a camera because I did not have a student at that time. She was apparently watching us from the cameras in the main room and didn't trust us enough to make sure we were there, even though both me and the other employee there that day have been longtime employees working basically every Sunday for the last 5 months together. 

Been working at Huntington Learning Center since 2015. I was able to attain the role of Head Teacher in just over a year. 

As a teacher I worked with all graded levels in both 4:1 and 1:1 settings. This covered both general education and special education. 

My responsibilities outside of teaching students, included administrating initial evaluations, and managing the center when front end management wasn't in the center (typically Fridays and Sundays).

I was told, when I was hired and during my training to become a Head Teacher, I would have the ability to advance into a management position. Even though I would apply, I would not be considered for a position. They would continue to hire from outside rather than promote from within. 

Pay is towards the low end when starting, and the primary reason why the center has issues holding on to teachers. We are supposed to get annual raises, but most often these are overlooked. 

The only benefits available are student loan help, and a 401k program. The first you need to inquire about when being hired, the second you are automatically enrolled in after a month working for the center. 

The 401k program is great, but there wasn't a lot of explanation of the details to it. Most teachers have overlooked the package sent to them and they keep the introductory percentage taken out of their paycheck, they aren't made aware there were other options available to them. The teachers also are not made aware they have to work 1000 or more hours in a calendar year to maintain their role in the 401k program.  

The management at the centers really depends on the people that are in the front. For the most part I have been lucky to have managers that will communicate with you. However, there can be times when communication doesn't extend to all parties that need to know. 

Teaching, the center has the materials and you don't need to plan any lessons. This is mentioned during the hiring process and is true. 

However there are issues:
1) Centers maybe missing individual books, entire series of books, or even the answer keys for books. A lot of the pieces are also outdated. Some answer keys in the computer are for different versions of the curriculum that the center does not possess. 
2) Teachers are not fully trained in how to use the most common pieces/programs. All they do is watch a video on a particular program and are expected to remember said video. This leads to pieces being improperly instructed, and programs not being followed. This causes more headaches than it should, since certain teachers have to be reassigned to correct these issues in the students program. 
3) Programs for SAT/ACT test prep students are out of date with the current test formats. There are issues with having to teach essay writing for the SAT, and the curriculum for the ACT provided to the students doesn't match curriculum in the computer or physically in the center
4) There are also answer choice errors in the test prep programs answer keys that weren't caught before publication, the answer choice will be listed as one answer but the correct answer is explained as a completely different answer. 
5) Only the Learning Center/SAT/ACT programs were migrated over to the computer recording system. None of the other test programs were translated. Teachers typically stick only to using test prep books, and not following actual test prep programs. There is no way to track student progress. 
6) Test prep programs are a cookie cutter program with only the name of the test changed between them. Methodology and examples remain the same between all programs. There was obviously no real thought to create programs tailored to each test, just something to be put out as fast as possible. 

Despite these shortcomings, every member of the staff is extremely welcoming. Working here you will learn a lot from each other. 

I worked at HLC South Tampa for 3 months and left due to a full-time opportunity in my field, not due to a dislike of the job or conflict with management/staff.

This is a part-time job with relatively flexible hours.

The owners (all HLCs are franchises, I learned) are seeking quality, not quantity, in terms of teachers. If you are experienced and/or passionate and/or driven, you will likely be able to find a place here.

You will spend your time reviewing students' curriculum, preparing for your time with them, going through the curriculum, and assigning homework to them. After your session(s), you are required to write down session notes in Huntington's online platform. If you can build rapport with students in a 1-on-1 setting, show up on time, and possess subject matter knowledge, you will probably enjoy this job and have little to no conflict with management, students, or staff.

At its best, this job is low-stress, flexible, enjoyable, and pays pretty decently for part-time work.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS:

All HLCs, including the South Tampa location, are franchises, and are therefore small businesses owned by locals. All the benefits/challenges of working at a small business apply, then.

The weekly schedule lists when you have students, not when you will or should be clocked-in.

There are sometimes meetings in the evenings and weekends you will be asked to attend. Specify what the days/times for these are during the interview process.

HLC South Tampa is closed Fridays during the school year and is generally open early afternoon to 8:30 pm weekdays as well as Saturdays/Sundays. Expect to work within those timeframes.

PROS:

Once you get on staff, you show up for your shift, work with your kids, clock out, and go home. In my experience, no drama here.

My kids were all great and the management/co-workers all support each other. Managements hosted special "thank-you" events to try to build staff rapport.

Investing in kids is, of course, its own reward.

CONS:

The worst thing about this job is that if a student cancels their appointment, you lose work hours. There were 3 or 4 times when I drove from my home in Brandon all the way to South Tampa on Saturday morning only for the student to not show up. While the management will generally try to give you the hours you ask for and maximize your availability, the fact is that your income may well depend on the sleeping patterns of high school students.

Sometimes, there will be large gaps of time between your students. So you might have a student 4-5:30 pm and not have another student until 7 pm.

Because this is a family-owned franchise, I don't see that there is much room for upward mobility. It's decent part-time money while in school or if you have other sources of income.

In terms of onboarding, I felt a bit thrown into the deep end with some of the Huntington-specific programs (HLC uses an online curriculum platform). It was kind of a sink-or-swim situation that stressed me out pretty badly my first day. Once I understood how everything worked, it all went quite swimmingly.

Huntington as an educational operation has to rank among the very best in its niche. I've been to competitors, and none of them even come close to the effectiveness of Huntington's curriculum. My instruction focused mostly on SAT and ACT preparation, and I found the Huntington techniques to be very concise, well-explained, and helpful to my students. During my time with Huntington, we had a sterling record of student score increases on these college entrance exams. Our students would routinely meet their score goals, and sometimes, they even exceeded them.

I was also privileged to work with alongside some extraordinary teachers and center directors. These people made our particular center brilliantly effective. The staff cared genuinely about the students, and the directors and assistant directors were consummate professionals. For quite a few years, we had a terrific mix of personalities that made the whole experience fun.

However, franchise business locations (including even ones belonging to the same company) can vary wildly, thanks to the peculiar personalities and ethics of their owners and operators. This is just the nature of the beast. My experience with management was OK in turns — even affable at times — but there were some major disappointments that marred the bigger picture. Whenever there was an opportunity to enroll a student requiring help in a subject other than math or language, the higher-performing teachers were consulted for these jobs. I agreed to take one such job that required a lot of preparation work outside the center. The student attended a local Catholic high school and wished to achieve a grade on his final exam that would qualify him for advanced placement courses the following year.

I tracked my hours, produced extensive sample tests, and even worked without a textbook for the first few weeks, relying instead on cell phone pics of the student's book. The overall effort was grueling, but I deemed it worthwhile. The instruction was a runaway success. My student scored an "A" on his exam and sent along a nice thank-you note. But when I informed Huntington of the hours I had put in — ones that were necessary to produce the student's desired score — I was awarded only half of the pay I was due. It was a fraud of the worst kind. The parents had gotten what they'd sought. The student had, too. The center had, too. The only party who ended up short-changed was the one without whom none of it could have happened: the teacher. Twice the work, half the money. Not good.

Also important to note is the pay generally. None of the teachers are paid in any way commensurate with what is fair. ACT/SAT teachers are paid poorly, and "floor" teachers — who often help up to four students at a time — make $5 less per hour. (These rates were in place as recently as January of 2017.)

My advice? Take my experience into account and pray over it. Keep in mind that this is not a long-term strategy for living. It's a part-time job, and while it has its moments, a part-time job is all it will ever be.

In a typical week the staff is expected to work endlessly, there is no work life balance. You are expected to meet the goals regardless of the situation placed in front of you. This means, if other people who you are not responsible for have failed at their job, you are blamed. The overall revenue of the center becomes priority over the kids nearly all of the time, and even if you are unable to influence this because others have made choices which are above your pay grade to influence, your job security is tied to finding the revenue and closing the gap. Even when that means working above and beyond reasonable hours. The kids and teachers are amazing. The culture that comes from corporate is almost cult like, Eileen Huntington is to be praised, all of the suggestions they give should be praised as fact, and outside thinking is not encouraged. I was told to suggest to a family who couldn’t afford our program that they should coordinate a multi-family garage sale to help build a fund for the student. Multiple people thought this was a wonderful idea and would help build a sense of community, I suggested it as I wanted to keep my job and as I expected the parent was absolutely mortified by the suggestion of asking others to sell their belongings to get their child help. Since the person suggesting it was from corporate, everyone blindly agreed. 

I am currently paying for corporate services to advertise, take calls for, and even help with conferences for the center. The conferences we do in person we get coaching from corporate. All of the services are additional costs paid to corporate. It most often seems as if corporate cares more about charging for every service they can get from the centers instead of actually helping them be successful. I have yet to find one source of good advice from them.  I have outright seen that anyone who slightly disagrees with anything pushed from corporate has gotten fired shortly after. It is clear that the company is run based on an “agree with me or get out” mentality as opposed to let’s all succeed. 

Every individual center might vary as nearly all are franchised, but they are all directly influenced by Huntington corporate. 

The core of the company has some good, like I said, the kids are good. I do this for the kids. I love when we can help them succeed. 

They found me on Indeed, hired me as a teacher, and with a month and a half promoted me to Assistant Director. I greatly enjoyed the work, and hoped to work with the company for several years. This turned out quite differently than my expectations.

My training was a mess. The online modules all had due dates that were several months in the past. I was told I was late in completing these modules as a consequence. Additionally, they had me shadow various processes once or twice before being expected to do the tasks myself without help. When asking for help, I was often told that I "should already know how to do this," and was further discouraged from asking for help. When I made mistakes during this training period, my supervisor (the Center Director) had to carefully choose their words to avoid saying that I was running this company into the ground. How can someone who is a month and a half into training run a company into the ground? If this was flight school, that'd be like giving a pilot in training full control without supervision after having been in the air twice. They hired and promoted me, knowing full well from the start that I had yet to finish my Bachelors, and that I lacked a teaching certificate. They also knew this was my first time working in this type of position. Guidance from my Director was virtually non-existent.

The Director was often late, and just as often left early. While working on training modules, I could often hear the Director on the phone with what I assume to be family (talking about non-work stuff).

The curriculum is outdated. The ACT Prep materials are full of typos and mistakes.

It took two months to receive any paperwork on benefits. The Director gave them to me around 4pm one day, saying to get the paperwork back to them the next days (30 pages of literature, mind you). I was demoted the next day for being 30 min late (despite never being issued any formal write-ups). The training period, I was told, is six months. They demoted me at the two month mark--conveniently right before the benefits were set to kick in--but asked that I continue teaching. Again, I received no write-ups during my time with the company. This demotion caught me off guard, and it was then that I realized I no longer could align myself with Management. I made mistakes, sure. But the training environment I experienced was far from being conducive to learning (ironic, given the nature of the business).

When they interview you, they say they can give you 30 hours a week, that the schedule has stability, that there are a lot of opportunities for advancement, and that if your student cancels, you will get paid. All of this is false. The schedule is very inconvenient and inconsistent. I worked anywhere from 6 hours a week to 22 hours. It was never the same every week. Some days I would be assigned to work for only 2 hours and some would be 5-6 hours and some days, I wouldn’t be on the schedule at all. It is very inconvenient when you have to drive a distance or take hour-long bus rides to and from work. They expect you to tire yourself out for a measly $26 for two hours of work. Sometimes, you would be scheduled to start at 11 but once you go to clock in, you find out that you’re not supposed to start until 12. Such a waste of time! The supervisors are also terrible. First because they do not give you enough notice when your student cancels, second because they do not stick to your availability, and third because they are absolutely rude. My students would cancel and they would only pay me for 1 hour of work despite my being scheduled for 2.5 hours. Sometimes, you would just be waiting for your student to come and all of a sudden, the head teacher would just tell you that your student canceled and that she’s known since earlier in the day and never bothered to notify you. When you give the supervisor your availability, she negates it. I told her I was available from 11-3 on Saturdays and she would schedule me from 9-3 - and that’s without a break! Whenever I would talk to her or ask her something, she would snarl at me, respond rudely and had very dry responses. On few occasions, she stared at me with such contempt. Yet, when other staff were around, she would act like a completely different person; very sweet and respectful. The students there are also very rude. One student kicked and hit me, another would stand on chairs and tables despite my telling her various times not to, and others roll their eyes at you when you assign work to them. One even threatened to bring a gun in! They also do not have any respect for the materials or the center itself. Some students would draw in the books, rip their covers, or draw on the tables and walls.

There is an advantage to working at Huntington part-time in one of their centers first, before deciding whether or not you want a full-time position. Learning the curriculum, web applications, and a wide variety of roles while taking on a position of leadership in a center is very stressful. Often times you are taking over for someone who up and quit because they couldn't handle it anymore, leaving you to deal with frustrated and anxious families who are depending on you to ensure their child makes the growth that someone else promised them. 
HOWEVER- NO ONE can say that the operations, training, and corporate team don't support you. You will have a dedicated coach with whom you work via phone to prepare you for how to conference with families, an operations manager to help you focus on your urgent tasks and guide you in best practices, and center staff who know the ropes and who also want you to be successful. If you do choose to apply for a full-time management position at Huntington, they will set you up for success as best they can. They will send you to a center to observe for a time- to learn the curriculum and the basic day-to-day operations of the center, and 'get your feet wet' as a teacher. Then, you'll spend a week or two training at corporate in classroom-like training that, bless their hearts, they really want them to be fun for you. You get to know the training staff and enjoy your time with them and appreciate the work they do. Then, it's off to YOUR center!
Do you love making a difference in the lives of others, especially children? 
Do you love to learn new and exciting things? 
Are you unafraid of confrontation, able to overcome objections and obstacles, and focus on a variety of tasks at once? 
Are you able to quickly and effectively problem solve?
Can you manage a to-do list effectively? 
Do you have OUTSTANDING communication skills? Are you a good listener?
Yes to all? Then you'll be just fine at Huntington. Good Luck!

I worked here for a long period of time. During that time, I noticed several things about the company. At first most things were positive, like employees helping one another and a desire to see children who were struggling to succeed. The program they use for the children is very scattered and is closely guarded. No work leaves the center without permission. They have a set program, and do not encourage you, as the teacher to waiver from it, even if it is to help the children you teach. It takes a while for you to learn the program they use. There seems to be a lot of employee turn over in this company, maybe because of the pay for the job that is expected to be done every day. This also is a part-time position, and hours are not guaranteed every week. It is on an as needed basis.  The hardest part about the job is two fold. First, learning the program and how to program the activities for the next time the children come  for tutoring. Second, you were expected to do this and write anecdotal notes on the children's learning and sometimes you had more than one at a time, but notes are expected for each individual student during their assigned time frame. You also didn't have much time before your next session was to begin, so you would stay after to do the note taking  job correctly, but they don't pay for that time. That would mean a lot of the notes weren't finished or done correctly for the next teacher to pick up where the last teacher left off. You do not always have the same children each time they come for tutoring, they rotate the children among the available teachers. The most enjoyable part of the job is to put all the negatives you may or may not experience behind you, and teach the children you have. When you do, and you get the "light bulb" moment it makes you and the child feel successful. And that was the most enjoyable part for me to see from the children I would work with every day.

So I worked for several different Huntingtons over the years. Honestly, I'll say it depends on who owns the center. I've never had the opportunity to work for a center owned by corporate, so I can't speak for those centers. From what I can gather, though, those centers are more organized and follow the guidelines. If you are in a privately owned center, though, all bets are off. Guidelines set by corporate will be ignored in order to make money. Copyright rules will be ignored in order to save money. At the end of the day, everything is about money. 

People who are full-time typically aren't supposed to work with students as they already have full-time duties to attend to. None of my bosses followed this. I was always expected to complete my full-time duties while also spending 20+ hours a week tutoring. Mostly to save money since I was already being paid to be there. Don't get me wrong, I love tutoring the kids, but not when I have a thousand things I need to get done before the end of the week. I never got to leave work on time. I was never compensated for overtime. We would have students attending at all hours of the day, even though typically centers are supposed to have the first half of the day to get admin work done. 

I worked at centers where the owner was never there. I worked at centers where the owner was there pretty much 24/7 and micromanaged every single thing I did. The one thing they all had in common was they pretty much let the parents run the show. I felt undermined at every turn. We were supposed to have a strict attendance policy, but the owners didn't care. I will never forget the day we had a student just not show up for a session because she didn't feel like it. We finally got a hold of mom 20 minutes after the session was supposed to start. My boss offered a make-up session. Felt like a slap in the face. 

If all you do is tutor, it's fine. You get to just work with the kids. Yes, you might get canceled last minute, but I assure you that your full-time staff is doing their best. 

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