Tutoring Report ....

I am very proud to report those of you who read this blog that my tutoring business is going VERY WELL. January topped all previous months and February has already topped January ... and I still have 2 more working days of February left!!

In January and February both, I have surpassed my take-home pay from teaching.

Now I need to make this DVD successful so that I won't have to worry about income over the summer months.

Tutoring is really going pretty well. I still need to increase my daytime hours. My evenings are almost totally full ... I even go from 5-10:00 on Thursdays ... which is quite a stretch for me!! All my students are reporting a rise in their grades ... something I LOVE to hear. Parents seem pleased ... and hopefully will tell other parents ....

I miss my tennis girls .... wish they would come back!! I need to investigate further how to find students like those girls ... athletes who travel circuits and need help while in this area.

I was hoping to have my daytime hours fill up with homeschoolers ... but the more I see of the homeschool business, I am pretty sure that won't happen. Most homeschoolers will not pay $40/hr for help ... and, from what I have seen .... they really don't care about the Math Skills of their children. I am absolutely 100% certain that a public school Math education is far superior to what 90% of the homeschoolers get ... especially at the secondary level.

Teaching the one day a week homeschool Saxon Math classes has been okay ... I will probably continue to do those classes but I'll have to charge more because the HER Store wants more from me!

All in all ... I have been pretty darn successful so far with this new business .... thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers!!

TEA's Wrench ....

Sigh ... well ... Texas Education Agency and Pearson Educational Measurements have decided NOT to offer us licensing rights to use the Study Guide materials. Mind you ... they didn't DENY us rights, either .... they just put the idea "On Hold" and will "revisit" the idea in 3 months or so ...

Hmmmm .... let's see ... in 3 months time students will be receiving notice of whether they passed or failed the 2006 administration of the Exit Level TAKS Test ... exactly the time we wanted to be promoting the DVD. By then it will be too late to film the DVD and get it edited and ready for sale ... and in August 2006 there is rumor that the Study Guide will change anyway!!

I am suspicious that Pearson may be stealing the idea ... VERY SUSPICIOUS!

Well ... we already have over $2,000 invested in this project and exactly 1/2 of the problems in the Study Guide on film. We cannot just walk away from this. However ... our lawyer says we need approval from Pearson and TEA. So ... Tom and I have put together a proposal for them and will be sending it out this week .... offering payment for licensing rights and a percentage of the DVD sales ... and asking for immediate response ... which we are not counting on. But we are trying!! If we don't hear from them, then I guess we will put all the film in a shoebox and put it on a shelf for potential future use ...

HOWEVER .... WE ARE NOT GIVING UP!!

I have spent all weekend (and thank goodness it was a snasty, cold, frizzly, soup-on-the-stove, fire-in-the-fireplace kinda weekend) ... pulling out old benchmark tests from school and organizing and rewriting problems. Tom has been a big help with the graphics and formatting ... he is a Word Wizard, thank goodness!! I am creating 10 mini-TAKS tests with 10 problems each ... one from each Objective. We are going to have to publish these tests and bind them. And on Saturday we will start filming all over again .... this time going over all of these tests!! So now we are creating a Book of 10 mini-tests and a DVD explaination to go with them.

It will be a harder sell, not linking it to an established product, even if the established product is basically worthless without someone to teach it .... HOWEVER ... in the long run ... I think the product I am creating will have more value to classrooms and to students who fail the TAKS and need help preparing for the re-test. And it will be MINE! No need to share Royalties or profits!! So Pfffffttttttt to TEA and Pearson!!

It's okay ... we were probably going to have to reshoot the first day of filming anyway .... it's all good ....

Filming Has Started ....

We started filming the TAKS DVD this past weekend. We filmed both Saturday and Sunday and basically got 1/2 of the material covered!

We are filming the DVD in our living room. Tom and I cleared out the big couch and chair and coffee table and replaced them with a 4' X 6' White Board and a bookcase. I placed plants and some of my favorite books and things on the bookshelf ... but I am usually sitting right in front of the bookshelf when I am on film ... so you can't see too much of what is on it.

The man doing the filming and sound has noticed some things which we have basically tuned out over the years ... the sounds of airplanes flying overhead ... ( we are on a flightpath to and from DFW airport ) .... the clocks chiming on the hour ... my chimes out on the deck ... the cats messing around with stuff and with each other ... AND the creature which lives in one of our living room walls who occasionally makes scratching and banging noises in the wall!! Our door and windows BEEP when they open and if the back door isn't secured it will sometimes blow open with the wind ... sounding the sharp BEEP and allowing the chimes to sound even louder!! All of this gets picked up by my microphone. The sounds of "home".

Luckily this past weekend was very cold outside ... which means it was also cold in our house ... so even under the lights I had no worries about sweating off my make-up or messing up my hair. I stayed pretty comfortable ... but Tom and Robbie and Bob (the camera guy) all were pretty chilled. It worked out well ... I don't do heat well at all.

As I mentioned before. we got about 1/2 of the material covered .... that includes boardwork, and calculator problems, and some of the introductions. Tom is doing a great job of being the gaffer and of keeping track of what problems we have covered and what we need to do. He has even caught me making a couple of mistakes ... stop ... take 2!! Robbie is being the Gopher and my cheering section.

I am doing my own make-up and hair ... and I think I looked pretty good ... I don't usually wear make-up much nor worry about my hair .... I hope I look okay on film. I am not too happy with what I chose to wear on the first day of shooting ... the sleeves were too short and Tom mentioned that I might want to cover up my "relaxed triceps" wiggling as I wrote on the board ... so I got a denim shirt to go over it. This is a normal outfit for me to wear ... and I do look naturally ME .... but I like what I wore on Sunday better ...

By Sunday, I knew what to expect so I wore a 3/4 sleeve top to hide my upper arms ... and it is a multi-hued jewel-toned tie-dyed shirt with sparklies at the v-neck and sleeves. I like sparklies ... and bright colors ... but I was worried that the tie-dyed pattern might do weird things on camera. Tom and Bob said it looked fine ... I hope so!!

Tom also mentioned that my personality wasn't shining through on Saturday. I was nervous and worried about time. We have to fit all 102 problems on 8 hours of DVD .... so I wanted to be sure to keep things precise ... we started filming around 9:00 and finally at about 3:00 I called it quits ... my shoulders hurt ... my neck hurt ... and my energy was flagging .... and we had only covered 25 problems ....

Still ... all in all it went okay. Bob said that he heard and saw personality ... so we shall see. Bob doesn't really know me that well. On Sunday, I ate a good breakfast and took some Aleve ...before the pain even started ... and that seemed to keep the pain at bay. But I was much more relaxed on Sunday and made sure my personality came through ... for better ... or worse!!

We will try to finish filming next weekend ... then there's all the editing and there will probably be some things we will have to re-film due to the noises and such ... we shall see.

All in all it seems to be going pretty well ....