Accredited Math for Middle School - Fusion or Tilden Prep
My child who is in the 8th grade is attending a private school geared to teach kids with LDs. My child has dyscalculia. The schools math teacher of many years left this summer and the school has not been able to hire a qualified teacher. The teacher in place now does not have a teaching credential (working toward one) and they have no experience teaching kids with LDs. My child sees an educational therapist once a week who we think is quite good. The ed therapists feedback is that the current instruction is not appropriate for neurotypical learners let alone kids w LDs.
We do not want to pull my child from the school entirely but want to explore alternative options for math learning. The way things are currently structured at the school, my child will pass math, probably even with good grade, but they won't learn anything and they will be woefully unprepared for high school. The ed therapist does not have time in their schedule to work with my child daily and wouldn't be able to assign my child academic credit for the work they do, even if they had the time.
Does anyone have experience with either Tilden Preparatory or Fusion or some other arrangement for a situation like this? I'd so appreciate any insights or advice.
Parent Replies
Hi, our student was in exactly the same position before the pandemic. He attended Raskob day school in Oakland in 6th grade and we realized that he is not learning much. By March of 2020 we already made a decision not to continue with Raskob, so we were looking to prepare him for a return to public school. He started at Tilden in the summer of 2020, so the classes were remote, but one-on-one. We saw a real growth in our son’s understanding of math. He also learned to work with a textbook. We kept him full-time at Tilden for the 7th and the majority of 8th grade. Since you do not plan to withdraw you son from his current school, you might not need an accredited school tough. I would look for an experienced tutor or maybe a retired math teacher. Best of luck to your student.
Our child has an LD that makes math hard for her as well, and when her private school switched to remote learning during the pandemic, it didn't take long before we realized that she was at risk of learning absolutely nothing for the duration. We decided to take her out of that math class completely and enroll her full time for two classes--Math and English--at a one-on-one school in the area. The school supported us in this, generously and proactively giving us a break in the tuition for the remainder of the school year. We looked at both Tilden and Fusion, and chose Tilden because of the generally superior credentials of the teachers and their greater longevity at the school. We kept the math teacher as a tutor once things went back on campus, and all of this was the best thing we've ever done. She is meeting expectations in math, finding things easier all the time, and scored on the MAP test as being in the 87th percentile for improvement over the last learning period. The head of the school is responsive and professional, and these teachers deeply care about their students. So, my advice is that you work something out with Tilden, and see if your kid's school, in recognizing that they can't meet their needs, will help you to make this possible.
Our daughter with a math learning disability has done great at Fusion Academy Berkeley. We paid for tutoring sessions packets along with the class. The tutor sessions replace Homework Cafe and all her homework was completed. Better yet her math teacher was the tutor! So there was never a question of what was needed to complete. She could provide extra teaching as needed and only 1 person for me and my child to deal with. I highly recommend Fusion for math!
My son had difficulty with math at Berkeley High School and the Tilden program has had excellent tutors that he was worked with to catch up. He has done both in person and zoom and both have worked well for him. With the focus that one-on-one tutoring provided, his grades improved significantly.