A new Cole Street business is looking to give parents some relief with flexible child-care and students a chance to keep up in their school work at the same time.
Enumclaw Tutoring, which opened just Sept. 14, is located at 1527 Cole Street, and is run by three recent college graduates: Noah Petersen, Lani Harrison, and Dan Huynh.
Petersen grew up in Enumclaw, and said his experience in high school and, most recently, his last quarter of college, led him back to the Plateau.
“After trying to navigate what springtime became with online school, and then seeing that Enumclaw would be trying to do something similar, I thought back to my time in this town. I did Running Start, and while I did Running Start, I did online courses, and struggled a lot with it, for the problems that are just inherent with online classes,” Petersen said. “I realized, once I found out that Enumclaw was going to be on this path, that I thought there would be a lot of people running into the same obstacles I did… and I thought we can use this space to troubleshoot that for kids and help them with that transition.”
Enumclaw Tutoring is not an all-day child care facility; the three owners believe that’s not what most parents of middle and high-school students need. Instead, the business offers per-hour rates, five days a week, in order to be most flexible for when parents need their services.
“We found that most parents, what they’re really looking for, is a supplement,” Petersen said. “We have the ability to go one-on-one tutoring, but actually, what were trying to scale for is setting up pods of students.”
For example, students that need supervision, but not necessarily tutoring, can reserve a desk for $10 an hour. Those that need individual attention from Petersen, Harrison, or Huynh can request a block of time for $20 an hour.
Of course, there’s nothing quite like learning with your peers, and Enumclaw Tutoring offers group rates as well (of course, COVID-19 social distancing protocols will be in effect); for groups of just two students, the hourly cost is $25, but groups can be as large as eight for $80 an hour.
Enumclaw Tutoring focuses on middle- and high-school aged students.
Appointments must be made to attend tutoring sessions — drop-ins are not allowed.
For more information, call 253-441-5104, email enumclawtutoring@gmail.com, or head to www.enumclawtutoring.com.
EXPERIENCE AND ENTHUSIASM
Petersen, Harrison, and Huynh all have their specialties and strengths when it comes to education and teaching, but it should be noted they are not, in fact, accredited teachers.
Harrison, born in California, grew up in a household of teachers and went to a bilingual school (she’s fluent in both English and Spanish).
“Going to UCSC (University of California Santa Cruz) and working in the Creative Writing Department, working with students in workshops and helping them home in on their writing and reading skills has allowed me to develop the skills needed to help other kids,” she said, adding that she learned how to “teach herself” in college. “I want to be able to show kids how to teach themselves, too, especially now that they’re doing online learning.”
Huynh, also from California, “was around the whole teaching thing my entire life” with a dad as a college professor, but he has his own personal experience as the editor-in-chief of The Moorpark Review, UCSC’s literary magazine.
“I have a lot of writing experience, so I’ll be helping students with college prep, SAT essays, stuff like that,” he said.
A Plateau native, Petersen has teaching experience on the slopes of Mount Rainier and on the beaches of California as well as earning his B.A. in fiction writing.
“Teaching kids in unstable outdoor environments has taught me a lot about the importance of facilitating a calm head space in really chaotic scenarios,” he said. “Given that right now, everything is kind of chaotic, showing them that the way they’re situated in juxtaposition with everything around them, and how they can control the way they interact with that for their own purpose — that’s the most useful thing I have to give students right now.”
Petersen added that they’re currently looking at bringing on a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) instructor in the very near future to round out their group.
All three are hoping the experience they gain through Enumclaw Tutoring will give them a leg up when the pandemic is over and they can resume in-person classes for becoming teachers, but until then, they want parents to know they’re not trying to take the place of one.
Instead, Harrisen said, their value lies in the fact that they’re closer to being peers with the students they want to tutor, and personally understand the frustration that comes with online learning.
