a tough call

In starting my own business I never dreamed of facing this situation.

It might seem like a no-brainer to anyone else, but as I have no paycheck coming in the summertime due to vacation and book-writing, course-planning investment time, a little tutoring here and there for summer school students helps out quite a bit, especially at $50/hour.

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Permit me to digress for contextuality's sake:

My decisions for leaving the Uni teaching staff were varied.

-I was unable to commit to a full-time position toward which faculty was pushing me due to the young ages of my children. In fact, I had to take a term off when The Young Prince was born.

-With childcare considerations, I could only teach evening courses, which usually had me returning home anywhere, depending on the hours of the courses I taught. Sometimes I taught the 5-8 block, others the 7-10 block. This, while having to arrive early to fulfill my required office hour presence--during which I, of course, ended up helping everyone else's students whose profs did not show for their posted office hours. Lovely.

-It was believed that natives, no matter how badly they teach, still teach better than non-native speakers and thus certain classes were withheld from non-native speaker reach. That was just discriminatory.

-I was wanted in a full-time position as I was known for creativity and hard work. I am good at test-writing and I would fulfill a complementary position, making the Department look good by offering conferences and workshops. But I was one of very few--and all of us non-natives, surprisingly--who actually did work to complete what our contracts required of us. So much time at home in front of the computer test-writing and planning and printing, since we were not permitted to make photocopies of anything other than exams due to budget cuts, took very valuable time away from my children. They couldn't comprehend that I was doing this for work, because they couldn't see what "work" was for me.

-I was feeling burned out due to all the effort and little professional gratification, although I loved the majority of the students I taught, and I really enjoyed the traditional/non-traditional student mix that the evening courses brought me.

-I was being threatened by a student that last term. I had been threatened before by a guy in summer school who never showed up for class and, when his final grade was a D, he sent me "or else..." emails that I just sent right up my chain of command and never had to deal with him. But this was a young lady who had transferred into this Uni from out-of-state, was on some sort of medication (I'm not sure what but at one point she referred to her psychiatrist and her medications in a conversation with me). It started with emails intended to intimidate, but "anonymously" sent (obviously not too saavy as very little is truly anonymous on email) so I had my techie-dude friends at the Department help me out a bit and track the IP of the system from which the emails were sent. They were astounded at the language used--although not profane, it was extremely intimidating. I'll refrain from going into all details but, after the same student I strongly suspected of threats insinuated that I was a b*tch in class one night, there wasn't much more I could do but report her behavior and communications to her dean, who then asked me if I was getting police escorts back to my car at night after teaching.

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When doing my normal insomniac middle-of-the-night email check last night, I about fell out of bed when I found an email from that same student in my junk folder. She needs a Spanish tutor for the summer, from after July 4 through the beginning of August. Granted, there will be one weekend in there that will be impossible for me as I will be out of town. I know she is not going to get a grade from me so that gives her no reason to be threatening toward me--but what if she does not put forth the effort on her own to achieve the grade she wants? A tutor can only do so much. I know she is contacting me because I was the best Spanish teacher she had at that Uni and I left--because I was one of the best there, even in my worst semester while dealing with her.

What frightens me is knowing what she has done, without her knowing I know, and my worries that, if things don't go her way she will know where I live. True, I could be creating a mountain out of a mere molehill but, then again she might be a crazy case.

I could opt to meet her at a coffee shop and tutor there. Disadvantages are that I would need to arrange childcare and the concentration levels would be difficult to achieve; I have my own little classroom in my home, whiteboard and comfy chairs and all, and there is a lot to say for ambiance.

So there we are. I think I already know what my decision is on whether to take her or not--any other opinions out there?