Yup Tutor Community

Hi, everyone!

We hope you have had a nice week! Sessions this week were jam-packed with tutors skillfully navigating students through productive struggle, meeting students where they are in their learning, and even a few examples of handling challenging situations with students with grace, professionalism, and integrity. Please take time to read through the post for more information on Prenda and a few reminders.

Getting to Know Prenda!

Prenda is the market leader in offering publicly funded microschools. There are currently about 2,200 students enrolled in Prenda microschools in Arizona, Kansas, Colorado, Louisiana, and New Hampshire. Students in Prenda microshcools engage in a curated curriculum from Kindergarten through Grade 8. There are a few options for students in the United States to choose from for elementary and middle school education. The high-level options are homeschooling, microschool, charter school, independent school, and public school.  Microschools are not supplementary to the other options but the entirety of the student’s school experience. Prenda’s model measures success through the empowerment of learners. Cultivating intrinsic motivation in students to learn is at the heart of the Prenda ethos. 

We would like to offer the opportunity for you to learn even more about Prenda from the Learning department. Please take a moment to complete this survey to help us gauge a time slot that will work best for the most people as well as gather some more questions from you so that we can make the most of our time together! The remainder of the survey has similar questions to that released last week. We truly appreciate your candid feedback!

Reminders

Hello, everyone!

I wanted to take a moment to talk through a few specific aspects of Prenda’s acquisition of Yup. This past week was one of significant change at Yup. In the excitement of the many moving parts, we recognize that our communication led to unnecessary confusion. The breakdown in communication occurred in three significant ways:

1. You received new contracts prior to the announcement of the acquisition, and therefore had no context to understand why you were receiving them
2. You received payment request information and U.S. tax forms when we had stated you would only need to sign a new contract 
3. For many, the US tax forms received were novel and came without any context as to  their purpose 

Before I go any further, I want to apologize on behalf of myself and the Prenda team. We dropped the ball. We should have announced the acquisition and provided context prior to you receiving any documentation. We also should have been clear about what would be expected of you in the short term. While we were able to answer some of your thoughtful questions through the Frequently Asked Questions newsfeed post, the unintended impact of our poor communication was a lack of confidence and excitement about what we believe is an excellent opportunity to maximize the impact of the Yup platform. Our sincere apologies.

Despite being bummed that our communication plan caused undue strife and confusion, I want to take this opportunity to share my thoughts on why I am excited at having joined Prenda, and some of the ways that it will increase our capacity to empower students to learn. The first is that Prenda is a larger company with a more robust infrastructure which will allow me to support you in the work that you do even more thoroughly. In particular, Prenda has a trove of data on student growth and mastery and they are experts in developing training and support for adults working alongside students. Prenda students using Yup will also give us greater context into where each student is on their journey towards conceptual mastery and the curriculum they are using to get there. We will have access to content and curriculum information for each student in the various microschools as well as up-to-date statistics on content gaps and areas of struggle. We may even be able to gather deeper insights into specific children from their Guides. All of this will help us meet the students where they are most effectively in our math tutor sessions on the Yup platform. While we will be maintaining our relationships with our current partner schools, this closer relationship with microschools, Guides, and students will allow us to offer all tutors more targeted professional development and training. 

Please take a moment to watch the videos below to learn more about Prenda and its innovative model to increase student autonomy through the infusion of creativity, and wonder, and allowing the student to take ownership of their learning.

 

 

We will continue to share information about who and what Prenda is over the coming weeks but I hope that your excitement builds as we join this group that, like all of us, is dedicated to the growth, development, and empowerment of young learners!

We really care about your experience, so please take a moment to complete the survey at the bottom of this post. The more information we have, the better we can address concerns and/or double down on what works. Thank you in advance for your thoughtful and candid responses!

Thank you for all that you do to help students delight in learning!

Best,

Haddie

Hi, everyone!

Thank you to everyone who has signed their Prenda contract! For those of you who have not done so, please check your email inbox and complete it by EOD Wednesday 11/2/22. We have received some great follow-up questions, and so would like to share them as well as our responses with the entire tutor community. We will continue to update the Frequently Asked Questions section below in this post as more questions come in.

Prenda Acquisition Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Prenda?

Prenda provides parents with an alternative to traditional schools by facilitating the operations of ‘microschools’ consisting of 5-10 grades K-8 students, led by a trusted adult known as a Guide. Students meet with the Guide at a fixed location for several hours each school day and, with the Guide’s support, work through a set of technology-enabled materials and curriculum provided by Prenda. Yup math tutoring will be integrated as daily support for Prenda’s students as they learn math. The Yup app will continue to function in the same way (with the same branding) for both tutors and students.

Who should I contact with questions regarding tutoring for Yup?

Haddie will remain the main point of contact for all questions regarding tutoring (scheduling, payment, etc.). She can be reached via email (haddie.lueddeke@prenda.co) or via Yup tutor slack.

How will scheduling change?

We will continue to use Humanity for our scheduling. Staffing volume will continue to be determined based on session demand. Shifts will continue to be one hour in length and distributed according to TGP level.

Will the teaching rubric change?

Our teaching rubric will remain the same. Our strong pedagogical practices outlined in our Teaching Framework align with the Prenda student experience. We will continue to provide the same excellent teaching to all students on our platform!

Will we know if we are working with a Prenda student?

You will continue to be matched with students from many different schools according to our algorithm. At present we have no plans to differentiate our service between Prenda students and students from other schools.

Will TGP and Multi-subject bonuses be changing?

Nope! Our Tutor Growth Pathway and bonus system will not be changing. You will continue to receive payment via PayPal or direct deposit. 

What is happening with TQMs?

For the next few weeks, our TQM model will remain unchanged. We are currently reviewing quality assurance policies and procedures, so there will likely be adjustments made before the end of the month.

Hello, everyone,

We hope that you have started a great week. We are writing to announce a big update from Yup.

For years, we’ve been working with parents and schools to positively impact as many students as possible. To further our mission, Yup recently joined Prenda through an acquisition. We’re really excited to join their passionate team and work together to empower student learning.

Prenda provides parents with an alternative to traditional schools by facilitating the operations of ‘microschools’ consisting of 5-10 grades K-8 students, led by a trusted adult known as a Guide. Students meet with the Guide at a fixed location for several hours each school day and, with the Guide’s support, work through a set of technology-enabled materials and curriculum provided by Prenda. Yup math tutoring will be integrated as daily support for Prenda’s students as they learn math.

Our service for students is not changing, and the only action required from you will be to re-sign your tutor contract on Prenda’s template which you should have already received. Please check your email and electronically sign your new contract within 48 hours of receipt. 

I will continue to manage everything related to academics, scheduling, and tutor operations. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me through email (haddie.lueddeke@prenda.co) or Slack.

Thank you for all that you do to empower students to learn!

Best,

Haddie

Hi, everyone,

We hope you had a great week! Please read through this post for a helpful feature update and important reminders.

Student Information

The information provided in parentheses after the student’s name has been updated to provide more accurate and helpful information. If we know the student’s grade, that will continue to be posted as well as updated language about the student’s past sessions with you. Please review the descriptions below to understand the new session information:

1. First Session – This will be your first session with the student.
2. New Student – This is one of the student’s first sessions on the platform. It maybe helpful to make sure that the student knows how to use the tools available (upload pictures, whiteboard, etc.)
3. Repeat Student – You have had sessions with the student before.

 

We have also updated the historic student information that tutors have access to in a session.  If you click on the carrot next to the student’s name, you will be able to see some helpful information:

 

 

 

1. Your last session with the student. This will allow you to greet the student appropriately and review previous work that you have done with them.
2. Recent sessions the student has had. You can see the rating, student comments, and tutor comments from the student’s previous 5 sessions. This may provide some helpful context into the student’s most recent experience as well as their content competency.

TGP Refresh Timeline

The end of October marks the close of another TGP cycle. Next week we will begin manually reviewing sessions and metrics to prepare for the refresh for the next cycle. Please review the Yup Tutor Policies for more information regarding the tutor-ranking system and TGP levels. The next TGP cycle is from November 1 – January 31. The following are dates and deadlines for information regarding October’s payment and TGP refresh.

• November 5:
  • Payment for work completed in October sent via PayPal and direct deposit
  • Payment summary emails sent
  • November 1 – January 31 TGP levels sent in payment summary email
• November 6:
  • Workbooks flip to the new TGP cycle. This will include all sessions starting November 1. Workbooks will display new TGP levels. If you do not see your new workbook, please do a hard refresh.
  • Direct deposit funds arrive in accounts

Reminders