Tutor in Lafayette, California

Good afternoon, My name is Jarrod Carozza. I am writing you in regards to summer (and prolonged tutoring of middle & high school students). I attended the Lafayette Unified School Dist. as a young student, graduating from Acalanes High. After school I enlisted in the US Army & served through 1999. Once I returned home I attended Diablo Valley College & graduated from Cal State Hayward with a B.A. degree in Psychology with a focus on childhood psychology & a minor in Sociology. After graduation I enrolled in the credentialing program to become a teacher. During that time I also began working in the Oakland Unified School District as a Stip-Sub at 3 different middle schools (Havenscourt, Elmhurst, & Frick). I spent roughly 2 years taking over classes that were left by incompetent teachers. In this role, I came in and actually took over the entire class for a lengthy period of time, sometimes until the end of the school year. After assessing the situation of where the children were academically (usually in a math class), I would begin to implement systems to not only educate the children, but to also engage them & get them to want to learn. I would not only teach from a syllabus, but I would develop relationships with the students, letting them know about me and who I was while learning about them as individuals. I understood that many, if not all of the students came from troubled homes or areas where school was not their only or main concern. I know that this is not a common situation in your school district, but I believe that it speaks to my ability to adapt to any situation & connect with students from all walks of life. In the classroom I set up games/competitions for the students to use what I had taught them, and be able to earn items. And when a student acted up in class, I didn’t just send them to the office as I was told that I could do, but rather separated them from the group at times and actually had a conversation with them to find out what was going on. Many times it had nothing to do with the class at all. I also began to set up meetings with parents to discuss their child’s performance and behavior in the classroom. I found this to help greatly in identifying strategies to help educate the students on an individual basis. I also tutored many of the students during lunch and even after school on my own time either at the school or at their home. Although stressful at times, I found the job to be extremely rewarding. I was able to get the majority of the children to perform at grade level, something that was not happening with 90% of them prior to my taking over the classes. In a few instances I even was asked to sub for the special needs class while that teacher had meetings. I found this to be a great accomplishment as upon their return, the teacher had nothing but praises to the principle on my behalf. This was a class with 5-8 students at any one time that needed extra care & attention while getting through lessons. The teacher at first was hesitant to leave her class with a “sub”, but after returning to see her students engaged & working, she felt comfortable enough to have me come in for her at any time. As I’m sure you know, substitute teachers make very little money. So to supplement my income, I began my own tutoring business. I began going door to door in the Lafayette, San Ramon, & Orinda areas delivering fliers & advertised on Craigslist for after school tutoring. For roughly 3 years I tutored 6-8 children a week in both middle & high school on Mathematics, History, & English. I found this to be a very rewarding experience in that I got to work 1-on-1 with struggling students. These tutoring sessions started off as a summer job, but after seeing such strong results in their children, most parents asked me to stay on through the school year. The only reason I left tutoring & the credential program was because I got married (to another teacher) & began a family, and we all know that it is extremely difficult to raise a family in the Bay Area on 2 teacher’s salaries. For the past 6 years I have owned my own coin & jewelry business here in the Bay Area. Honestly, it has been a great experience, but now I am ready to move on and get back into education. I am currently in the process of reapplying to the state for a sub credential & would absolutely love to start tutoring again. What I am hoping for from you is any help in getting in contact with prospective parents in need of tutoring for their children during the summer. If you have any questions for me or know any parents that would like to contact me, please feel free to either call or email me. I greatly appreciate your time & help with this. Jarrod Carozza 925-330-... [email protected]