Teacher Guidelines for Tutoring Public School Students for Personal Gain

Some teachers that want to earn extra money need to carefully consider that they may come into conflict with the existing Code of Ethics and The Principles of Professional Conduct of the Education Profession. Even when the teacher has the best intent, extra effort must be taken to be certain that proper procedures are followed. When a teacher tutors any student and is compensated by the student, parent, guardian, organization other than the School Board then a potential conflict is possible. In general:

1. The teacher must not receive compensation with a student for whom the teacher assigns a grade that could result in the student's passing or failing a class.

2. Private tutoring must always occur outside of the regular duty hours.

3. Information from the student's teachers or School Board shall be only be requested with the written permission of the parent and/or legal guardian.

4. Conferencing must occur outside the regular duty hours.

5. Facilities owned by the School Board shall not be used unless the teacher pays a rental fee required by the School Board.

6. The teacher shall not supply materials and equipment that are owned by the School or District.

7. The teacher is encouraged to tutor at a site other than the employee's work site.

8. Situations that do not fall within the guidelines must be discussed with the employee's principal or building administrator and the General Director of Human Resources prior to the beginning of tutoring.

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Even tutoring that has no compensation should be properly approved before any tutoring starts. There are many teachers that volunteer to run and supervise after school programs and there are some approved tutoring programs where the teacher works additional hours after school and is paid by the School Board. This is often limited to tutoring to core subject areas that will be tested by state or federal standardized testing (Example: FCAT). Tutoring during home room and a study period with no compensation falls into the normal range of activities for dedicated teachers. Every school and district may have slightly different guidelines that must be followed.

I once volunteered to stay after school 1 day every other week and teach a few students guitar at no cost. I was careful to get permission from the principle and to set guidelines to finish this tutoring substantially before the school was closed for the day. I also made certain that when the students left the tutoring session that they were picked up by an authorized person. I always tutored these students wile other teachers were still in the building.