Any tutor ever take contracts from DVR?

Gee, Des, maybe we are clones. I worked with vocational rehab students occasionally in Maryland.

My students were a few in university (the very few successful ones) and three or four in community college.

The community college students had the typical problems of that group, being hopelessly underprepared — no matter how hopeful and positive your counsellor is, you are going to fail algebra if you can’t deal with 1/2 + 1/4 — and lacking general study skills and motivation. A lot of them had the idea, unfortunately encouraged by their counsellors, that they would simply attend college for a fixed amount of time and then get handed a ticket to a good job. The idea of working very hard and learning something in the process was Martian to them. These problems are not limited to the rehab group by any means, but they do stand out there.

The counsellors in the vocational rehab program seem to have a very high rate of turnover. I got my resume approved by a certain supervisor and a couple of counsellors sent me a couple of people and I worked out how to do the paperwork for them, then the students either finished the class or disappeared; six months later a new student or two would turn up and I would find that there was nobody in the office who had ever heard of me and I had to go through the paperwork again. Come to think of it I think they still may owe me some money … You aren’t supposed to start tutoring the student until all the paperwork is through, but get real, this is government, if you followed that rule strictly there would be no tutoring until more than halfway through the college term and they would all fail, so you keep a private record of hours and adjust your bills later.

They do pay. I think the hourly rate was around $20 or $25 some years ago; check what the going rate is. If they tell you to set your own rate, set it at the high end of the community rate.
The pay is very, very slow; first they approve you, then you do some tutoring, then you send in a bill after two weeks or a month, then a government office delays your money for a few more weeks. You may get the money a couple of months after starting. Oh, well, it’s a nice Christmas surprise.

I’d say, yes, go ahead with it; it’s similar to tutoring any other adult ed students, and very rewarding when you do reach the one or two who want to get somewhere. Don’t plan to make a living off the pay but it”s a nice extra when it comes.
You have to deal with very annoying paperwork; set up a system for yourself — personally I prefer to hang the sheet on the wall and note it each session. Keep your contract handy with the report sheets because you have to refer to code numbers from the contract. Make lots of photocopies of the blank time sheet if your local office, like mine, is doing self-destructive cost-cutting and giving you only one.
Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

SImilar but not as much experience here, though a little better :-)
Skills tend to be abysmal, but not always — but at Parkland there’s a mildly controversial thing called mandatory placement testing, so they’ve got to have a few skills to even get placed into the pre-algebra class. However, 1/2 + 1/4 is usually not one of them — if nothing else, I’d start each session with 2 minute review of finding simple common denominators and what to do with exponents because that shows up on any math test :)

Thanks for replies, Victoria and Sue.

>Gee, Des, maybe we are clones. I worked with vocational rehab students occasionally in Maryland.

No, no that’s Janis and I. :-)

>My students were a few in university (the very few successful ones) and three or four in community college.

The students they are talking about are going into or are in TVI (voc. college). I don’t think DVR works with actual university students anymore.
Perhaps some community college. These kids have yet to get their GED.

>being hopelessly underprepared — no matter how hopeful and positive your counsellor is, you are going to fail algebra if you can’t deal with 1/2 + 1/4 — and lacking general study skills and motivation.

The students they were talkign about can’t get into basic math 100. And maybe are having difficulty in something like math 98, 99 or something which is very very basic. Multiplication, division, basic fractions.
There are a lot of reading disabilities and some dxes of dylexia and ADD.
Of course they may have OTHER dxes like felons (of course with all the drug prisoners we have in the US…), drug addiction, mental illness ,etc. (sounds like the charter school I worked at actually).

>until more than halfway through the college term and they would all fail, so you keep a private record of hours and adjust your bills later.

seems like wise advice!!!

>The pay is very, very slow; first they approve you, then you do some tutoring, then you send in a bill after two weeks or a month, then a government office delays your money for a few more weeks. You may get the money a couple of months after starting. Oh, well, it’s a nice Christmas surprise.

They *told* me the following: that they send the records to Santa Fe (NM) and you get paid in two weeks. Sounds like someone’s wild imagination. And also since when does ANYTHING happen in two weeks in NM!! This is the land of manana. The only people who work fast is the tax dept. (they must hire out of towners exclusively). :-)

>I’d say, yes, go ahead with it; it’s similar to tutoring any other adult ed students, and very rewarding when you do reach the one or two who want to get somewhere. Don’t plan to make a living off the pay but it”s a nice extra when it comes.

What happens if you say, get a student with quite serious learning problems or serious substance abuse problems that aren’t treated, say, etc. Do you have to keep working with him (I’m assuming it will be a him)?

Have you ever regretted taking it on, say you get more up to your limit of how many clients you can take? Or am I really not too likely to get that within a year anyway?

>You have to deal with very annoying paperwork; set up a system for
Good luck, and let us know how it goes

Thanks for all the great advice.

—des

Substance abuse: forget it. It is hard enough to get through adult ed cold sober and working hard; people who return to substance abuse are guaranteeing that they will fail over and over again.
This is part of their problem of course, and they need counselling out of it, but *you* are *NOT* the AA or NA trained counsellor. Amateur counselling is fraught will difficulties and dangers — I know, I’ve tried it, not with students but other acquaintances, and I’ve been caught in the enabling trap and then the aggression cycle when I quit enabling; *don’t*.
I would like to tell students like this that they need to go back and get straight before they do anything else, but honestly they generally see that learning is supposed to be work and they disappear on their own before I get to talk to them.

Underprepared and entrance tests: well, we had tests too for the community college, but a large number of students, often unfortunately with staff help (more enablers) found ways to get around them. They signed up for courses in the summer when the college for some reason wasn’t using the placement tests. They had LDs and took the tests in the Disability Support Center, where they were allowed/encouraged to use calculators — on a calculation-based arithmetic skills test. The college gave a cram course to push people through the placement tests (why???). The students entering algebra should have been in the arithmetic review, those entering the review 2 should have been in review 1, and those in review 1 were essentially illiterate. I remember one day in the tutoring center where I was trying to help one poor young girl who was a high school graduate but unfortunately could not tell time and did not know how many cents in a dime or a nickel, and forget any other calculations either. Of course she deserved help, but the class exercises on elapsed time and making change were not going to do her any good unless she had some foundations. Be prepared for this.

Learning problems: well, I always tell people that I cannot make any guarantees, all I can do is use good teaching principles and work hard, and the great majority of my students make very big gains in a month or two. A lot of people want snake oil and miracle cures, and they either go somewhere else right away or quit tutoring after a few sessions. Those who stay on seem to be pretty happy with the results in general. Give it a try, try various approaches and a lot of patience and repetition, and if you’re out of your league with a particular student and just cannot reach him anyhow, you can tell him so honestly.

Limit of number of clients: this happened last fall. I was working flat out and getting pretty exhausted. It doesn’t happen often yet, alas, but I am seeing more. The situation seems to have corrected itself.
When new potential clients called or emailed, I told them straightforwardly that I had limited time available in the fall, on the less popular days of Friday and Sunday, but I expect the schedule to change in January so they were welcome to start right away and adjust times later. Most just went away and never called back, and a few are indeed starting with me this week.
The people who were demanding huge chunks of my time on inconvenient days decided just before the holidays that they were going with another tutor, no explanation why; I am quite disgusted over this, as their child was *extremely* difficult and I had worked to exhaustion convincing the kid to approach work more positively, so now of course the new tutor will get all the credit for the improved attitude and the increased learning.
So now I have a more reasonable schedule and the bills piling up again. Oh, well.

You do have to recognize that you aren’t going to put a clien’ts life together for them — you are providing one piece to the puzzle. Most of mine don’t even “go there” as far as the other issues in their lives, but I suspect I manage to convey that I’m there to help them get skills, and no, they won’t be able to give me custody of their children or get help with last month’s rent.
However, what I do try to do is know the available resources… so when my godchild’s mother calls with the crisis of the month and the reason they “just need…” I can say “and you can call Mrs. L from K and she will be glad to set you up with someone to plan your budget. Would you like me to contact her and have her call you?” Sometimes it even works :-)
Most of the time as soon as it would require a behavior change, it doesn’t happen.
I focus on trying to make sure that they get more skills. If they don’t ever get on the “education track,” I at least want ‘em to be able to read better,spell better, add better…

Oh, and I try to communicate a lot with anybody else working with a person to figure out what’s helpful and what’s enabling — often folks with finely honed survival skills will be experts at playing potential resources off each other… until they realize we talk to each other.

>Substance abuse: forget it. It is hard enough to get through adult ed cold sober and working hard;

Hmm, I didn’t mean that I wanted to tutor someone with substance abuse problems, but what to do if that ends up to be the big issue? Since we know from your vivid example that the testing is less than wonderful, what do you do where the main problem is NOT ld but some other sort of thing that you don’t want/can’t deal with, no I would not want to counsel someone about this.

But did you get students that had some issue that just really got in the way, and if so what did you do about it???

> I would like to tell students like this that they need to go back and get straight before they do anything else, but honestly they generally see that learning is supposed to be work and they disappear on their own before I get to talk to them.

So you talked to the student about it??

>Underprepared and entrance tests: well, we had tests too for the community college, but a large number of students, often unfortunately with staff help (more enablers) found ways to get around them.

Hmm well these are kids that could not pass the GEDs. I can’t imagine that they do anything more seriously in NM though. :-) Of course if your example holds maybe I will get someone who is not even anywhere near there yet.

>Learning problems: well, I always tell people that I cannot make any

Well I expect those. It’s the other kind of things I worry about!

>A lot of people want snake oil and miracle cures, and they either go somewhere else right away or quit tutoring after a few sessions. Those who stay on seem to be pretty happy with the results in general. Give it a try, try various approaches and a lot of patience and repetition, and if you’re out of your league with a particular student and just cannot reach him anyhow, you can tell him so honestly.

So in other words, you basically say if I can’t handle a particular student to tell the student. Does that work? What does the agency say about this?

>Limit of number of clients: this happened last fall. I was working flat out

I have pretty well decided that I want 2-3 clients and I want them in non-afterschool hours. Not sure I can arrange that exactly. I have wondered how much control I might have over this. If I agree to do this do I have to take people. Do I have to go by the schedule the agency wants? etc.
Unlike the rest of my practice, I want to see them at their center. They could have some criminal issues and I don’t want theft or worse involved.

Thanks Sue and Victoria,

—des

“If I agree to do this do I have to take people.”

You don’t in Virginia. Once you are approved as a vendor by the Dept. of Rehab. Services you are eligible to have clients referred to you by caseload counselors, but are not required to accept them. Of course, if you turn down enough the counselors will stop referring.

Welcome to wild and wonderful world of voc rehab. :)

John

P.S. - Please don’t judge VA DRS by what goes on in MD. ;)

Hah! But I live in the wild state of NM!!!
Thanks for everyone’s responses. But I still want to know what if there is a case that ends up too complex— not ld but something else.

—des

YOu teach, as best as you are able.
You try to connect the person to resources, as best as you are able.

It *is* tough — you are making yourself vulnerable to seeing somebody else’s troubles up close and personal. Exactly what you do is your decision.

“what if there is a case that ends up too complex”

You call the rehab caseload counselor who authorized the service and tell them that the program or service you have agreed to provide isn’t working and why. This could be due to poor attendance, lack of effort such as not preparing or completing assignments, etc. This is how we handle everything from cosmetology school to electronics school - the client has to hold up their end of the written rehabilitation program that they have signed.

Typically you will be required to submit a progress report of some sort with your bills. This is the time to begin reporting problems, unless there is something scary going on and then you should pick up the phone. Caseload couselors have budgets and bosses. They don’t need to be wasting the taxpayers money and shouldn’t be funding any service that is not showing results that will eventually lead to an appropriate job.

John