Why this exists

How it started

I started Tutorium because I wanted to tutor and could not find a decent way to do it.

I was trying to get tutoring hours through a club. Actually connecting with a student who needed help turned out to be the hard part, and when it did work, the only students I ever reached were other Live Oak kids. That seemed backwards to me. There were students a few miles away who needed the same help and had no obvious way to ask for it.

Around the same time I kept seeing posts on Nextdoor from private tutors around Morgan Hill charging by the hour. Some families can pay that without thinking about it. Others cannot, and their kids end up behind for a reason that has nothing to do with effort.

Tutorium is my attempt at fixing both ends of that at once. Students who need help get it at no cost. Students who want to teach get a real way to do it instead of chasing down contacts one at a time.

Leonardo FranckeFounder, Tutorium

Who does the tutoring

Our tutors are volunteer high school and college students, and the roster is growing as we bring more on. Every tutor takes subjects they finished recently, usually within the last year or two. That closeness is the point. Someone who sat for the same exam two years ago still remembers exactly where the confusion lives, and a fourteen year old will ask them a question they would be embarrassed to ask an adult.

Sessions are free because the tutoring is volunteered, not because the cost is buried somewhere else. There is no upsell and nothing to buy.

Where the program stands

Tutorium is new, so here is what is actually in place rather than a set of claims: an active roster of volunteer tutors, sessions running both online and in person, community space around Morgan Hill through local recreation and community organizations, and a request process that gets most students matched within a few days.

We are building relationships with school counselors so students hear about this from someone they already trust, and we are recruiting more tutors on an ongoing basis.

The nonprofit

Tutorium operates as a program of Forma et Anima, a California nonprofit with 501(c)(3) status, based at 16495 Jackson Oaks Drive, Morgan Hill, CA 95037. Volunteer hours are logged and verified through the organization.

Questions about the program, partnerships with schools or community organizations, or anything else: contact@thetutorium.org.