1. Start with a free consultation
Tell us what you are seeing and what you would like help with. You might want reading to feel less frustrating, math to make more sense or schoolwork to need fewer reminders. We explain how our online tutoring works, what happens next and how families pay, so you can decide whether to take the next step.
You don’t need to know which skill or teaching approach your child needs, and you don’t need a diagnosis. One recent example and your questions are a good place to start. The consultation is a conversation about fit. It doesn’t enroll you, assign a teacher or produce a plan; those come later, with your input and work with your child.
2. A fuller conversation about your child
If you choose to go ahead, we have a more detailed conversation with you. We ask about your child’s learning history, strengths, interests and challenges, what has helped, and what you hope will change. We also talk through practical needs, including scheduling and any help your child may need to join sessions online.
Your experience as a parent guides the plan. A child may show a skill at home that is hard to show elsewhere, or understand an assignment but need help getting started. If your child has an IEP (individualized education program) or a 504 plan, now or from a previous school, its goals and accommodations are useful to share here, in your own words.
3. A teacher from our team
We use what we learn to choose a teacher from our team whose experience fits your child’s needs and goals. Our teachers are Special Ed Resource’s own, and every one is certified in special education; they provide the tutoring themselves. Training in a particular reading program or other named method varies by teacher, so we confirm it for the teacher who would work with your child.
If you plan to pay with Georgia Promise, the program decides who can teach those sessions: a teacher with a Georgia teaching certificate who is named on the Marketplace offering. We’ll tell you in the consultation which teacher that would be.
Before lessons begin, you talk with the teacher. It’s a chance to discuss goals, ask about their experience and explain the routines and support that matter to your family. If the teacher turns out not to be the right fit, tell us, and we’ll reassess with you. For private-pay tutoring, we can offer another teacher from our team; for Promise-paid sessions, we’ll explain the options under the program’s certificate rule.
4. First sessions and a written starting plan
In the first sessions, the teacher works with your child to see which skills are secure, where learning gets hard and how your child responds to teaching: which explanations help, how practice goes and what support they need to take part. Confidence, interests and independence are part of that picture, not just the academic work.
That work shapes a written starting plan with goals, the recommended number and length of sessions, teaching approaches and resources. If you pay with Georgia Promise, sessions follow the approved Marketplace offering you order. We review the plan with you before you decide on next steps. The plan is individual; we don’t prescribe the same number of sessions for every child. It is an educational plan for tutoring, not a clinical evaluation or a replacement for a school IEP.
5. Live sessions online
Your child works one-to-one with their teacher over live video, from home, anywhere in Georgia. All your child needs is a computer with a webcam and an internet connection. Session times are arranged with your family.
There is no set curriculum. The teacher works on the goals in your child’s plan, at your child’s pace, using visual aids, examples and short, clear steps, with breaks when your child needs to move. Online tutoring doesn’t suit every child, so in the consultation we talk honestly about screens, attention and adult help. Your teacher will help you get set up on Zoom during your first session. Read more about what we teach.
6. Progress updates and check-ins
You get a summary after each tutoring session, and your child’s teacher can provide a quarterly progress report if you ask for one. Use them to talk with us about what your child can now do on their own, what still needs support and whether the approach should change. The long-term aim is independence: a child with the skills and strategies to do more of the work without us.
Paying with Georgia Promise
Special Ed Resource is an approved provider in the Georgia Promise Scholarship Odyssey Marketplace. We are not the Georgia Education Savings Authority (GESA), Odyssey or the State of Georgia. The Georgia Promise Scholarship is Georgia’s education savings account (ESA) program, which news reports often call a school voucher. GESA runs it, and Odyssey manages applications and the Marketplace. For 2026-27 it provides up to $6,500 per student, paid in four quarterly payments of $1,625; GESA may withhold up to 5% for administration. Families approved in the August or November 2026 application window receive only the second half of the year’s payments.
Applying is a separate step
Families apply through the program’s website, mygeorgiapromise.org, not ours. Eligibility rules include two consecutive public-school enrollment counts (or eligibility for public kindergarten) and living in the attendance zone of a school on the state’s lowest 25 percent list; attending a listed school while living outside its zone does not count. A Promise student cannot be enrolled in public school (the only exception is an approved college and career academy), and each quarter the parent completes a Quarterly Opt-In confirming that “my student is not in public school and will not attend public school while using scholarship funds for this quarter.” Our eligibility guide and application and deadlines guide walk through the steps.
The Odyssey Marketplace (the only route for tutoring)
Promise funds are spent in the Odyssey Marketplace. Once funds are in the account, GESA’s Family Handbook says the family “browses services/items on the Marketplace” and “directs digital funds to private schools, service providers, or vendors.” Offerings there are checked first: GESA’s Service Provider/Vendor Handbook says offerings from an approved provider “must be pre-approved by GESA prior to their inclusion on the program marketplace.” Promise tutoring is limited to core subjects.
Promise does not reimburse tutoring. The Family Handbook says: “Families will not be reimbursed for any purchases made outside of the Marketplace, with the exception of eligible transportation expenses.” Odyssey adds: “Do not pay any invoices out of pocket if you plan to use your Georgia Promise Scholarship funds for that purchase.” If you want Promise to pay for tutoring, order it in the Marketplace.
Before you place an order, know Odyssey’s rules. Odyssey has a “No Cancelation Policy” covering products and services, and says service orders “will only be cancelled if authorized by the vendor.” Refunds go through Odyssey. Talk with us first, so any order fits your child’s starting plan. Our Georgia Promise provider page explains how to order our tutoring in the Marketplace and the Promise rules for tutoring, including who may teach Promise-paid sessions.
| What happens | Paying with Georgia Promise | Paying privately |
|---|---|---|
| Who can use it | Students with a Promise award (Promise starts at kindergarten) | Any Georgia family, including preschoolers from age 3.5 |
| How you pay | Order an approved offering in the Odyssey Marketplace from your child’s account | Directly to Special Ed Resource |
| Reimbursement | None for tutoring bought outside the Marketplace | Private payments are not reimbursed by Promise |
Our guide to paying for tutoring with Georgia Promise covers the Marketplace in detail, and what Georgia Promise pays for explains qualified expenses.
Program status: In August 2026, families filed a lawsuit in DeKalb County Superior Court (Sands v. Green) challenging the rule that students must first attend public school, according to the families’ lawyers and news reports. As of October 2, 2026, we have found no report of a ruling, and the program is operating for the 2026-27 school year. Read about the lawsuit.
What our tutoring doesn’t include
Our service is academic tutoring for students who learn differently. We don’t provide speech-language therapy, occupational therapy, ABA or other therapies, and we don’t diagnose or evaluate children. Special Ed Resource works with children from age 3.5, but Georgia Promise starts at kindergarten, so preschool tutoring in Georgia is paid privately.
If your child has an IEP and you are weighing Georgia Promise, read the law’s wording first. O.C.G.A. § 20-2B-22(e) says: “A participating student's resident school system shall not be obligated to provide services to such student that would be required if such student were enrolled in such school system unless the student reenrolls in the resident school system.” Our guide to Georgia Promise and your child’s IEP explains more. For your child’s situation, ask your school district, a Georgia Parent Mentor or Parent to Parent of Georgia.
Official sources
- Georgia Promise Scholarship program website (mygeorgiapromise.org)
- Georgia Promise Scholarship Program Regulations (effective July 1, 2026)
- SB 233 (2024), the Georgia Promise Scholarship Act (O.C.G.A. § 20-2B-20 and following)
- Odyssey: Georgia Promise Quarterly Opt-In
- Odyssey: Georgia Promise reimbursements
- Odyssey: Marketplace cancellation policy
- Odyssey: Marketplace returns and refunds
- Odyssey: Georgia Promise Scholarship help center