Barry Lapping Math Tutor

Barry is an excellent teacher, very friendly and professional. My 11 years old son is an international student and he really helped him through his transition to the new school. Well probably be getting more classes with him in the near future. I highly recommend him.

I am the father of a recent graduate of Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL. I wrote this review in September 2018 but didn’t have a good medium on which to post it until now.

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My son graduated Stevenson in May 2018 and started as a freshman at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in September 2018.

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During elementary and middle school, my son struggled with mathematics. Although he was a good student overall, he often got frustrated by his math homework and tests. He had trouble grasping math concepts and applying them when needed.

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When entering 6th grade, we recognized that he needed a tutor as the math curriculum became more challenging.

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Math tutor Barry Lapping came highly recommended from a another Stevenson HS family who had hired Barry a couple of years earlier and saw great results with her children.

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Mr. Lapping first started tutoring my son in October 2011. He and my son connected quickly, and it became apparent that Mr. Lapping had the ability to manage my son’s frustrations with math while moving him through the lessons. With Mr. Lapping’s patience, calm demeanor, and his years of tutoring students, we watched my son become a more confident and much higher-performing math student. (Note: Mr. Lapping was sure to provide my wife and me with a recap of each tutoring session along with next steps. We felt as if we were always fully informed.)

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When our son entered Stevenson High School in 2014, he was placed in a more accelerated math program. The tutoring he had done with Mr. Lapping had paid off. In fact, by the time he was a senior, with ongoing and regular math tutoring from Mr. Lapping throughout high school, my son received straight A’s in his math classes his Junior and Senior years. He also received a top test score of 5 on his Advanced Placement Calculus A-B class in the Spring of 2018. He celebrated this success with a call to Mr. Lapping!

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When I asked my son why he thought Mr. Lapping was so effective as a tutor, he said that it was because Mr. Lapping had a thorough understanding of the math concepts at hand and made it a point to help students understand the concepts and the process behind the math. He said Mr. Lapping wouldn’t just give you an answer, he worked with you to understand the answer and the concepts that led you to it.

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My son credits Mr. Lapping for much of his success in mathematics and has recently expressed interest in the actuarial sciences as a collegiate path of study. Prior to Mr. Lapping, this possibility would have never crossed our minds.

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My wife and I agree that hiring Mr. Lapping made a significant and positive impact on our son and his future. We believe that any student who has the opportunity to work with Mr. Lapping and experience his tutoring will benefit greatly.

He is highly recommended as a math tutor.

Mr. Lapping was always able to take difficult, confusing subjects and make them approachable. He did an excellent job working to ensure I really understood the concepts we covered and that I would feel confident applying them in class, on tests, etc. I worked with him for several years and always looked forward to seeing him each week! He is truly the best.

Barry Lapping is an excellent tutor! He was recommended to me by one of my daughters middle school teachers. We liked him so much that he worked with both of my daughters as well as some neighbors and friends children. Barry is always well prepared and encouraging. He can break down difficult concepts to make them more understandable. My daughters have very different learning styles and Barry easily adapted to both their needs. Barry Lapping is the best!

I have taught mathematics for thirty-three years and have worked with Barry Lapping for over seventeen years. I am honored to have the opportunity to write him a recommendation.

Our school is privileged to have a resource center that is home to certified teachers in every subject area from 7:00 a.m. until after school hours. For seventeen years, Barry was the foundation of the mathematics help that is offered to thousands of students each school year. Just walking through the tutoring center, one could always find Barry amongst several students of all ability levels as he taught mini lessons to get students caught up from absences or answer homework questions. Barry always made sure that he was communicating with the over 40 teachers in the mathematics department to be consistent with how topics were being taught in the classroom. For as long as I can remember, Barry chose to take his lunch during 7th period so that when students were free during the 4th, 5th, and 6th period lunches he would be available.

Early in Barry’s employment, he realized that students can definitely learn from each other. He began a Peer Tutoring Program in which students from our honors and accelerated courses volunteer time in the resource centers helping to tutor younger students. Barry would personally come into all honors and accelerated classrooms to explain the program and recruit new members each year. He offered a training program to teach high schoolers how to help others in a positive and effective way. Peer tutoring in the mathematics department has been an incredible way for all of our students on both ends of the tutoring experience to grow. Peer tutoring continues to be a popular way for our upper level students to earn volunteer hours, gain teaching experience, build confidence in a leadership role, and impress colleges and future employers on their resumes.

Over the past ten years, a program was implemented to help students with topics specific to individual courses. Being in the learning center, Barry worked closely with our math department to help figure out how to best help these students. He was instrumental in building up this program where teachers could identify students that needed targeted help. Teachers would be specific as to which areas of their content needed work and Barry would work with these teachers to make sure students were getting the help they needed. He kept track of the many hours that students came in for help and even identified those that were not coming in.

Barry simply doesn’t ever say no to a student that needs help. He has personally tutored many of my students and I can attest to the fact that Barry has an extraordinary rapport with all of the students that he comes in contact with. Students love him and respect him for the help he is able to provide. Teachers respect how valuable Barry has been to the mathematics department over the years. It is so difficult to find someone that can literally help in just about every mathematics course. It is even more difficult to find someone that can also relate to the students and teachers equally well. The impact that Barry has made on the mathematics department is immeasurable.

Please consider Barry Lapping a top candidate for your employment opportunity.

Barry is an incredible tutor. He tutored both of my daughters over the course of 5 years. He is patient and kind and never gave up when my daughters didnt understand a concept. I had one daughter who peppered him with questions the entire time and he patiently answered her questions one by one. I have another daughter who was more laid back and he would use different methods of explaining the concept until she learned the material. We would highly recommend him.