The History of A+ Education, LLC

Math and Science Tutors for High School Students and Others

Ann began tutoring in Phoenix in 1998 after spending five school-years as a secondary math and science classroom teacher.  While Ann loved teaching and enjoyed classroom activities with students, there were so many responsibilities beyond classroom teaching and curriculum development that made the profession unfulfilling.  Ann found the stress and hours necessary to be the kind of teacher she wanted to be very taxing.

Since her sophomore year of college, she tutored a variety of students in various subjects—working as tutor for the college athletic department and for a commercial tutoring center.  During her five years in the classroom, one of her additional school duties was to run an after-school math and science tutoring center.  Having worked and assisted in the management of other tutors at tutoring centers, she decided she did NOT want run or own a tutoring center.  Ann’s passions are teaching and mentoring—and the management aspects of providing students services through other tutors was not fulfilling to her. 

After Ann left the classroom, and before her daughter was born, she tutored up to 30 hours a week.  Yet, she still had to tell some families that she did not have availability to tutor their students.  When Ann became a mother, she began to reduce her hours and had to turn away even more students.  She sought others to whom she could refer these sometimes desperate students.  Through many avenues, she searched unsuccessfully for quality tutors to whom she could refer these students.  Ann had to tell families that she could not help them and didn’t know who else could.  When Ann began home-schooling her daughter in 2004, she needed to reduce her hours even more.  Ann intended to stop taking tutoring students at that time – only following through with the students she had already been helping in prior years. 

However, that summer before the school year even began, Ann received more requests for tutoring than she had time to spare.  Even more than in the past, Ann had to tell families that she couldn’t help them and didn’t know who else could.  Ann became very troubled by not being able to provide assistance to these families.  The perceived discomfort of administrative burdens of hiring and managing tutors became more bearable, and even preferable, to turning students away.  So Ann made the difficult decision to expand her tutoring services beyond herself and go out and find qualified and dedicated tutors for these students.

Ann would like you to keep in mind, that her passion involves helping teens.  Math and science are just areas in which teens allow her to positively affect their lives, and they are fields in which many students undeservedly have low self-esteem.  Not to mention, our country needs more undergraduates in math and science related fields.  This is Ann’s passion: to help students believe that they are capable of doing much more than they think they can, and help them realize how math and science can help shape the adult they will become and the world in which they will live (regardless of their future profession).  The tutors Ann has added to the business since 2004 have a similar passion!

So many circumstances challenge the psyche of today’s students, sometimes undermining the confidence it takes to excel in subjects like math and science.  Ann’s desire to help students has never been about how much she can earn off their weaknesses. If money had been her primary objective, she would not have gone to college to become a classroom teacher.  Ann’s core courses as a Physics Education Major included the same calculus and physics core courses the undergraduate engineers were required to take.  In fact, she met her husband, a mechanical engineering major, in her Calculus II class.  For Ann, the passion for educating and mentoring youth was more important than a choosing a lucrative career. Otherwise, having completed the same math and science core courses, she would have changed her major to engineering.  A question her husband asked her many times during their undergraduate days.

A+ Education, LLC charges reasonable rates compared to competitors, and we return a large percentage of these fees to tutors.  There are a great number of administrative costs involved in running this business (e.g. advertising, bookkeeping, and phone service).  Ann’s time is also compensated: time to talk with parents, mentor tutors, meet staff and teachers, and fulfill other responsibilities.  However, this is not just a business enterprise to Ann – it is a mission.  To improve our success in this mission, Ann has recently hired a part-time business administrator.  Her husband, as our business consultant and tutor, also continues to support this mission.