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Local tutoring service specializes in house calls

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

Parents worried that their kids may need a little extra help preparing for the CRCT, GHSWT, PSAT — or just plain old reading and writing — can now get it delivered right to their front door.

Peggy Thomas, a Peachtree City mother of two, recently opened a local franchise of a unique, affordable in-home tutoring service called Club Z!

Founded in Tampa 10 years ago, Club Z! now claims to be the fastest-growing network of its kind in the world, with more than 250 franchise locations around the globe.

What sets it apart, Thomas said, is a requirement that Club Z! only hire state certified teachers or degreed professionals with classroom experience. Instructors are then matched up one-on-one with individual pupils, meeting them regularly in the comfort and security of their own homes.

“Not only would the tutored student have quality time with the teacher, but Mom would be freed up to spend some time with the other kids or do things around the house,” explained Thomas. “Plus, the student is more comfortable and less pressured in his home environment.”

Up and running just since the first of the year, Club Z! has been able to take advantage of Fayette County’s deep pool of teacher talent, including many highly qualified teachers who, for whatever reason, aren’t employed right now.

“I’ve found some really interesting specialty types of tutors here too,” she said, including specialists in art, photography, and even one man who can tutor English as a second language to Japanese students.

“I personally interview and hire all the tutors, and when a new student applies for enrollment I also personally conduct a home consultation so that I can match up not only the academic needs of the student but the personalities involved as well,” Thomas explained.

Thomas acknowledged that at first glance, it wouldn’t appear a community like Fayette County, where students already perform above state and national averages, would have much need for traveling tutors.

“But at least 80 percent of what Club Z! does is with average or above-average kids who are struggling with a subject and just need short-term tutoring to catch up again,” she said.

The new venture isn’t intended to suggest that Fayette County schools are somehow falling down on the job, either. On the contrary, she and her husband moved here from Florida almost four years ago just to take advantage of Fayette’s well-regarded special education program.

“I want district personnel to know that I want to be a resource and not an adversary,” Thomas said. “We want to build a strong, long-term business asset for this community and for our family.”

While deciding whether to pursue the franchise, Thomas said she consulted with friends, other parents, classroom teachers and principals and all agreed there was a need for affordable, convenient tutoring.

So she and her husband, Joe, flew to Tampa last November to meet with company executives.

“We were really impressed with the integrity and the hearts of the owners, as corny as that sounds,” said Thomas. “So here we are, four months later.”

But the journey actually began more than four years ago, while the Thomases were living in the Florida panhandle. That’s where Joe was stationed in the Air Force, and where their son Kevin was born in 1994.

Florida schools served Kevin well through kindergarten, Thomas said, but then he was diagnosed with Non-Verbal Learning Disorder (NLD), which affected the way he processed information.

When it became clear the schools in Walton County, Fla., weren’t willing to address Kevin’s needs, the Thomases put him in a Catholic school. Soon after, Joe was hired by Delta and the family — which by now included a daughter — prepared to move to Atlanta.

“I started flying up here to check it out,” Thomas recalled. “I went to North Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb. I have a friend from high school and an old college roommate who both live on the Northside in Alpharetta and we were going to move up there, but then somebody said I should look into the schools in Fayette County and so we checked out Peachtree City.”

It didn’t take much convincing. In April 2001, they took an apartment in Peachtree City while waiting for their house to be built, finally moving in Sept. 5.

Six days later, terrorists struck New York and Joe, an officer with the special operations unit of the Florida Air Reserves, was immediately called into service.

As Thomas recalls now, she and the kids spent the next two years mostly alone in a new house in Peachtree City while Joe flew all over the world on classified missions, occasionally coming home on the weekends “when he was in the country.”

“We didn’t know anybody here, except our realtor,” Thomas remembers. “But the neighbors came together and embraced us and really took care of us. I want to make this business successful, because I want to give something back to the community.”

To find out more about Club Z! In-Home Tutoring, contact Peggy Thomas, area director, at 770-632-1661, or email her at clubzfayette@bellsouth.net. On the Web, go to: www.clubztutoring.com