I have tutored on many different platforms (IRL, online, and hybrid) for years, and also taught in a traditional classroom at various grade levels, and this is the only one I have ever quit after just a few months.
1. Unpaid Work and Underpayment
-ClassUp offers the lowest pay relative to the amount of work compared to any other tutoring platforms I have used, especially because significant unpaid time MUST be spent on preparing personalized lessons, feedback, and homework.
-Teachers are ALL paid a flat rate of $20 "per hour," but the actual work extends far beyond the 50-minute lessons due to mandatory unpaid tasks like parent feedback with word-count constraints that must be written appropriately for parents within a certain short period of time, any back-end record-keeping to track student progress, and lesson/homework preparation.
-Half of your hourly pay is "forfeited" if feedback is not submitted within 24 hours, which treats teachers more like employees than contractors and is excessively burdensome given how little time there is between consecutive lessons.
-The pay rate does not vary with experience or skills, leading to a lack of financial recognition for more skilled teachers.
-I should also mention that the "interview" involves preparing and delivering a whole unique lesson, which is far more time/work than an interview should take for the very low (and nonnegotiable) pay they offer to all teachers.
2. Invasive Monitoring, Yet No Feedback
-All lessons are automatically fully recorded, but teachers do not have access to these recordings or have any information about who can view them or when, where they are saved, etc.
-Finding that a teacher has been watched live by LPs or other staff without clear communication about this practice feels invasive and uncomfortable, especially given it’s unclear whether this is also occurring when no student is in the classroom.
-Teachers do not receive any feedback about their performance, student progress, or parent/student satisfaction, leaving them in the dark about how they are doing, which is odd considering this unusual level of monitoring.
3. Independent Contractor Misclassification
-Teachers are required to submit class feedback to parents (implying, based on other teaching requirements in the contract and other materials, that they must be written in a certain way) within 24 hours or face penalties, which indicates significant control over how and when work is completed.
-Teachers must adhere to schedules after availability is set once by the teacher, with penalties for cancellations and changes, which resembles an employee’s fixed schedule (as employees always have certain hours they are/are not generally available to work) rather than an independent contractor’s flexibility.
-The contract includes harsh penalties for “service failures,” such as removing pay for being literally 1 second "late" or ending the session 1 second "early" (even if the student is not there!), which are more typical of an employer penalizing an employee.
-ClassUp claims ownership of all class materials and recordings, which limits teachers’ rights to their own work. This is unusual for independent contractors who typically retain rights to their own creations.
-Teachers are required to use the company’s teaching platform, which imposes specific and inconvenient constraints and limitations on how they conduct their work, further indicating this level of employer-like control, especially since non-ClassUp teachers cannot use the platform and it does not offer any unique features that cannot be found in, say, Google Workspace.
4. Unilateral, Biased Contract Changes
-ClassUp can unilaterally change bonus pay and add provisions that result in loss of income, which is both unfair (as bonuses are the only aspect of compensation making the pay even remotely reasonable) and demotivating.
-ClassUp reserves the right to revise aspects of the agreement unilaterally, which puts teachers at a disadvantage as they must accept changes to continue working, and are even penalized financially for quitting if they do not agree to the changes.
-Threatening to withhold previously earned bonuses if teachers do not provide two weeks’ notice for quitting is unreasonable and punitive, especially given that we are supposedly “independent contractors” and may have not agreed to this when agreeing to work with ClassUp.
5. Communication Issues
-Communication with the operations team is often unhelpful, with teachers receiving vague, unhelpful, or no replies.
-Teachers receive very little information about students ahead of time, sometimes including incorrect names, ages, unclear notes filled with grammatical errors, or vague descriptions of issues, making it difficult to prepare adequately.
-There is no system for recording/organizing long-term student progress, which results in teachers having to do this themselves in their own time and also a lack of continuity between teachers.
6. Dependency on "Learning Partners"
-Teachers rely on LPs (the only humans whose names you will hear) for scheduling and almost all communication with parents, and when LPs are unresponsive (which is nearly always the case IME), it reflects poorly on the teacher, increases likelihood of losing students, and there is no clear resolution for teachers or students/parents, as the operations team has no other information and just refers back to the LP (or is unresponsive).
-LPs sometimes fail to show up for the monthly parent meetings, which makes the teacher appear disorganized to the parent who is expecting a dialogue with the teacher and LP.
-Teachers face significant issues with scheduling changes due to unresponsive LPs and LPs not communicating with each other. Given that their position exists and I am not paid for these tasks, too much time as a teacher has been spent trying to communicate with LPs about scheduling issues.
7. Issues With Mandatory Platform/Tools
-To avoid violating the contract by revealing "trade secrets," I will not go into the many specifics, and just say that the platform you are forced to use is far worse than any mainstream/free alternative like Google Meet and Slides, etc. Being required to use this also oversteps the bounds of being labeled an "independent contractor."
