Is it the school’s business to know if a student has a tutor in a specific subject? Is it acceptable for a student to keep his or her tutor private? In Preludes, there is a section about the appropriate way for students to hire tutors. If a student is thinking about hiring a tutor, he or she must inform the administration and their teacher for that subject. Students are prohibited from being tutored by their classroom teacher or department chair. If a student hires a private tutor, the tutor must be in contact with the student’s school teacher; the teacher and tutor should collaboratively set guidelines for the type of assistance the tutor will be giving the student when completing school assignments. Even if a student has a tutor, their schoolwork should be his or her own endeavor, and he or she should obviously dissociate from any form of plagiarism. In Preludes, the administration remarks, “We wish to stress, though, that the school believes tutoring should be a remedy of the last resort. We have found that tutoring can often adversely affect a student’s attitude in class, promoting the feeling that, ‘So what if I don’t get it now. My tutor will explain it when I get home.’” 

The administration understands that all students have different needs. Overall however, the administration seems to be urging students to refrain from hiring private tutors. Some students hire a tutor for a course level that is too difficult for them, when the wiser choice would be to consider moving down a course level. Various students also may rely on their tutors to motivate them to do their work because they do not think they will be able to complete their assignments independently. Other students obtain tutors because they struggle in a certain subject and need extra assistance. Generally, individuals use tutors in different ways; some may rely on their tutors to do school assignments for them, some use sessions with tutors to substitute paying attention in class, and others may need the guidance from their tutor to understand material they learned in school. It is difficult to formulate an alternative to individuals hiring private tutors because all students have different incentives for acquiring these tutors. In an interview, Rabbi Stochel said, ““I am not a proponent of tutoring and certainly not in cases where a tutor is a source of support that a student relies upon on a regular basis. My greatest concern about tutors is that they are too involved in the schoolwork of students. As educators, we feel strongly that our goal is to foster independence and promote self-sufficient learners; tutors often inhibit that goal instead of furthering it.”

The administration also proposed that tutors raise an ethical dilemma: how much can a tutor help a student before it verges on cheating or creating unfair circumstances? When teachers receive work from students that tutors were involved in completing, teachers are unaware of how much of the work was completed by the student. This uncertainty can give a teacher false information about the student and their competence in that subject. The moral issue regarding tutors can also apply to parents helping students with school assignments. Ms. Krupka said about this complicated issue, “Let’s say it is not a tutor, but a parent helping his or her child write an essay for school, which would be great. At what point does the tone of the essay shift from the student’s voice to no longer the student’s voice? I think that sometimes, there are genuine issues where a student hands in an essay and they did not cheat, but a parent helped them maybe a bit too much.” It can be useful for parents to have a role in encouraging their children to complete assignments, but there must be some boundaries placed on parent involvement in their children’s schoolwork. 

Although the rules of tutors are established and elucidated in Preludes, many students are unaware of these guidelines and most do not adhere to them. A poll was sent to Ramaz students; it received 34 responses and had a sophomore majority. 20% of respondents currently have tutors for help with school on a regular basis. It found that 79% of these students were unaware of the guidelines regarding tutors in Preludes. The data from this poll suggests that if a student feels that they need tutoring, they may not follow the procedure in Preludes merely because they are oblivious to Ramaz’s specific rules regarding tutors. Based on this data, it seems that in the future, tutors will continue to tutor students, parents will continue to hire tutors, and students will most likely continue to disregard the various rules in Preludes.