Chalkline Tutoring

Ruben Salcedo taught middle-school math in San Diego Unified for eleven years. Frances Ilesanmi taught high-school English for nine. Chalkline is the two of them in one room off University Avenue, teaching four things: the Math Lab twice a week, SAT math over video before each sitting, the college essay through the autumn, and a Tuesday evening for adults who were told at eleven that they were bad at this.

What we do not do is the thing this trade is known for. No score guarantee, no grade promise, no letter about how many points somebody gained — because the number is unknowable in advance and the families who most need honest tutoring are the ones most often sold a number instead. What you get is the hours, the syllabus, and a note after each session saying what was actually covered.

Two or three times a year we tell a family that their child needs an assessment we are not qualified to make. That conversation costs us the booking every time, and it is the one we would want if it were our child.