Compass Education Employee Reviews about "materials"

Pros

Very supportive staff, useful training and team building events, excellent students, good curricular materials, excellent website, W2 employment

Cons

The usual tutoring issues--lots of driving, canceled lessons, inconsistent hours--nothing unique to Compass

Pros

Pays well, paid training, lots of academic materials to support tutors

Cons

Poor customer service, Managers only tell what you're doing wrong, Not enough work to have as only job, no benefits.

Pros

Competitive rates, good students, accommodating staff, good curriculum and materials

Cons

You’re going to be dealing with a lot of very demanding and entitled families, expect a lot of rescheduling and placating of concerned parents

Pros

Great materials and steady hours. Nice support from office. Flexibility.

Cons

Driving. Sometimes a good distance apart.

Pros

* Great people and support from the head office in Beverly Hills. They truly are caring. They're pretty empathetic when misunderstandings occur with parents / students. They know it's part of the business. * They do all the lead generation, sales and admin, so you can focus on tutoring. * They give you all the materials you need to teach, including their own material plus whatever other books you need. * They pay you for prep time, though not nearly as much as the tutoring time. * They offer continuing ed opportunities a couple of times a year.

Cons

* No payment for driving time, which can take a lot of time depending where you live in relation to your students. No payment for gas or car wear / tear either. * Like with any tutoring gig, there are times of overwhelm from having lots of new / ongoing students, while other times there aren't many to serve. It's the nature of the business. * It's tough to make a decent living doing this work, so consider having a regular day job or at least steady income from another source.

Pros

This is an excellently managed company that really supports its employees. Some positives are: annual pay raises; smart, nice and highly competent directors and staff; ability to specialize in one area of tutoring (i.e., to work just as a verbal tutor or just as a math tutor); great instructional materials and training; lots of opportunities to take on additional responsibilities for additional pay. I have been tutoring here for four years and recently also began test proctoring and essay grading. It's a great part-time gig, and the tutoring work with students is mostly very rewarding.

Cons

The only con is that pay varies a lot seasonally (i.e., fewer tutoring clients in the summer months, though you can always pick up test proctoring, etc. duties to fill the gaps a little bit), so this generally can't be one's only job/source of income. As a part-time job, though, it is fantastic!

Pros

- Friendly and effective management. - Quality materials and training - Easy to use and effective online timesheet

Cons

-Lots of time/gas money lost to driving

Pros

- The people at Compass really know their stuff and will train you as needed to become a tutor. If you need help, people at the office are friendly, professional, and easy to reach - Course materials for your lessons are provided - Lots of flexibility with your schedule. Great to work around another job or graduate school. - Most of the families I've worked with have been very nice

Cons

- Pay is not as nearly good as it sounds - you will likely be spending a lot of time on the road relative to your time on the clock - Lots of wear on your car (again, relative to pay, and mileage isn't compensated) - Bridge tolls are not paid for proctors - Compass hires so many people relative to the number of hours available that it will be hard to get as much work as you want - Not a lot of interaction with coworkers - That feeling of shock you have when you find out how much parents pay for your lesson vs. how much you are paid for it

Pros

Pros include... 1. Great, very thorough training at Compass' office in Beverly Hills, which took about two full days. The following week, there was a teachback to make sure I was able to put the training into practice. Lunch and tons of snacks were provided and there was a $150 stipend for completing training. 2. Very quick turnaround on calls or emails to office staff. There is a dedicated case manager for every student and any questions or concerns I have about the program are addressed within a couple of hours. Supplemental binders and other materials generally show up at my door the day after I request them. 3. Plenty of work. I'm able to dedicate full-time to this so I have a caseload of about 20 students on average, of whom I see about half every week; however, I am cross-trained in SAT Math/Verbal, ACT Math/Verbal, ISEE and HSPT, so tutors who specialize in just math or just verbal or who have fuller schedules outside of Compass may see a different number of students. 4. Being able to dictate my own hours -- hours are SUPER flexible. I'm able to take college courses just for fun during the day, go to appointments, run errands etc. and work on the evenings and weekends when I'm available. 5. Compass encourages their tutors to tailor their approach to each student, which means that although I stick to the basic concepts learned in training, I can modify my lesson plans to suit my students' needs. 6. Tutor events every few months -- trivia night, Christmas parties, etc. A lot of the other tutors work in the entertainment industry in one form or another, so they can be a lot of fun to mingle with as their pop culture knowledge is unrivaled. 7. Compensated prep time at $14 an hour. There's also paid parent time at half my hourly rate if parents have questions about the program after the session is over. 8. I feel good about representing Compass as a company. The parents have not been strong-armed into buying more lessons than they actually want. The materials are high-quality and represent the exact types of questions students will see on test day. Compass offers proctored practice tests every weekend with a one- or two-day turnaround on test scores. And parents routinely report that the office staff is as responsive to their needs as it is to mine. I've worked for companies that only cared about the bottom line; this is not one of them.

Cons

Cons include... 1. Being on call at pretty much any time of day. Parents have texted as early as 5:45 a.m. and as late as 11:30 p.m. However, it shouldn't be too hard to get around this by setting business hours. 2. Students frequently reschedule or cancel. However, Compass does have a cancellation policy where it's considered a "missed lesson" if the student cancels less than 24 hours in advance. The parents are charged a fee and I still get paid for the lesson. It's up to me to report the missed lesson at my discretion -- most tutors will give one freebie with a warning and then charge if it happens again. 3. A decent amount of paperwork comes with the territory -- one online writeup per session with details of the lesson, homework assigned, etc. This is also kind of a plus, though, because I have details of their program to date all on my phone. 4. I happen to like driving, but most people don't, so I'll handle this in the cons section. As someone who works in and around the South Bay, there is a pretty sizable amount of driving involved. I opted to extend my geographical area to Orange County, so for a while I drove more than most, but tolls are compensated and the hourly rate is higher for out-of-area students. I made up to $54 an hour instead of my usual $33 by commuting to San Clemente. Most of my current caseload is now within 15-45 minutes of my home (with traffic).

Pros

- incredibly supportive and friendly staff - thorough and engaging training seminar - access to well-crafted materials and resources - clear expectations, policies, vision, philosophy - Compass Points (CP) is aces - The food during the training was fantastic. Thanks for that!

Cons

- I live in Oakland and drive a 2001 Honda Civic, stick shift, so driving up the curvy hills of Mill Valley can be a challenge. - That, and gas, I guess?