Not Disability-Friendly & Big Drop in Quality After Management Change I worked with Goals Art Academic Tutor through the Department of Rehabilitation while dealing with a serious health condition that affects my memory and brain function. They knew this from the beginning. The whole point of me being there was to get help building systems so I wouldn't forget tasks, emails, assignments, and basic things that come with school and life. At first, the experience was much better. When Mason was there, the service felt more supportive and accountable. If there were issues, he checked in and made sure things were handled. After he left, the quality of service went downhill. Leadership didn't take the same level of responsibility when problems came up, and concerns were mostly kept "within the tutors" instead of actually being addressed at a higher level. One of my tutors (Brianna) was great and genuinely supportive. My experience with another tutor (Maddie) was not a good fit at all. Our sessions felt uncomfortable, and at one point I was told things that made me feel like I wasn't going to succeed. She also made negative comments about my other tutor, which put me in a really awkward position. I tried to request a change in tutor because it wasn't working for me, but I wasn't given that opportunity. What made this worse is that when concerns were raised, it felt like leadership relied more on what this tutor reported rather than actually checking in with me or looking at my progress. At the time, I had been sick and told her I was behind on some assignments, which is pretty normal when you're dealing with health issues. What wasn't acknowledged is that I had caught up, completed my work, and finished my exams shortly after. That context didn't seem to matter. Instead of adjusting strategies to support my memory and health-related challenges (which is literally what DOR is paying them to help with), it felt like the blame was put on me. The support I was supposed to receive to help me remember things like emails and tasks wasn't consistently implemented until very late in the process. There was progress happening, but it got overshadowed by internal issues and poor handling of concerns. In the end, my services were terminated without a real conversation or collaborative attempt by the CEO. It felt dismissive and honestly pretty hurtful, especially as someone with a disability trying to rebuild skills after a major health setback. If you're someone with ADHD, neurological issues, memory problems, or any kind of disability, please be careful with this organization. They may work fine for people without complex needs, but in my experience, they are not well-equipped or properly trained to support people with disabilities. The service changed over time, and not in a good way. I'm now working with a different agency that actually understands disability-informed support, and the difference is night and day. read more

My child worked with GOAL for a year. The first tutor found a great way to work with my child and the tutoring sessions seemed successful. Then. In the middle of the year, the tutor left. They found another tutor and my child started the process again, getting to know this new tutor, as the new tutor was also coming up to speed. Then this tutor left. In total, they had four tutors work with my child. The last person was very pregnant, although we couldn't tell as the sessions were on-line. She was with my child for only a month prior to going on maternity leave. Then they offered to find a new tutor for the few remaining weeks of the school year and I just had to cancel services. Considering the amount of time necessary for both the tutor and the child to learn about each other and comfortable move forward in the learning process, I am unable to recommend this team to anyone as their style of replacing tutors is counterproductive. read more

I had the highest hopes for GOALS after my one-on-one with Mason. The plan was for my husband and I to begin parent executive functioning coaching and for my son to start writing tutoring. Our parent coaching was cancelled not one, not two, but three times by the facilitator by text, with maybe 10-15 minutes notice. I was shocked that a business that trains EF can't even make it to their own scheduled meetings. My son did two tutoring sessions. His assigned tutor spent two sessions asking him questions. They never worked on his writing. He also told my son that when he was growing up, his parents were AMAZING because they let him play video games whenever he wanted - no restrictions! We heard about this for daysss When I cancelled, Mason was very kind (he's the reason for two stars not 1) and offered free makeup coaching and a refund, but we've lost faith in the process at this point. It's been a few weeks, and still no refund. read more

Joyce White This company does not work well with highly intelligent people with ADHD. Their prices are too high and their instructors are not well trained. They are suppose to be providing services to DOR clients. If you need executive functioning classes, do not use their services. If you PTSD too with ADHD, they are not trained in understanding a person with trauma. When my partner didn't want to meet for a session, they reported that he didn't cooperate in the session. He was up set and triggered. They viewed his actions as a reason to stop services. How can you work with the disabled but stop when the disabled person show their pain? This company was such a disappointment. If you are trained to teach executive functioning, open a business in the San Jose area and you will have a good business. They charged $200 an hour. read more

Goals Oriented Academics was the first to understand my son's executive functioning challenges and create a plan that worked! Through their assessments, productivity, and executive functioning services - everything was provided in a supportive environment that brought about real change in my son. read more

Our child, who has dyscalculia, needed Math support - especially during remote learning due to COVID. GOALS was a great solution for us. They matched us with a tutor that could adapt to our child's needs and go beyond just helping to do homework, but build foundational skills needed to progress in Math. The tutors provide detailed session notes to help parents understand what is happening in sessions and the support staff were always responsive via email. read more

We have been working with GOALS for Executive Function coaching during our child's freshman year in college and the entire experience has been wonderfully positive, supportive and effective. Carolyn has been an amazing coach and we see already notice greater confidence, systems and resourcefulness in our college kid. We look forward to continuing the coaching support through college since Carolyn's guidance is clearly helping our daughter learn new processes and tools to thrive as a young adult growing in independence! read more

My son is in high school and struggling with figuring out how to study, especially in subjects he's not interested in or don't come easily. He's quite capable IQ-wise, but lacks maturity/discipline/motivation, and as a teen, doesn't want to listen to any input from his parents. Seeing him floundering, we reached out to GOALS for help. They really understand how to work with him, getting his buy-in before even beginning to teach him new skills. He doesn't fight going at all because he has been (rightly) convinced that what he's learning at GOALS is very valuable and necessary for him to achieve the goals he deems important for himself. Also, our son can also be incredibly stubborn and sometimes difficult to work with. I worried that the tutors wouldn't be able (or desire) to handle that, but they are experts and amazing with him. I'm even learning some parenting tricks from their techniques. I'm so grateful for the services that GOALS provides. It's a real stretch for our budget, but it may be one of the best investments we've ever made for our child. Highly recommend. read more

My daughter attended GOALS for four months last year during her freshman year in high school. She received weekly executive functioning training and attended guided homework sessions 3-5 Days a week. Learning how to stick to using a planner, update it daily and use her time efficiently she was able to bring her grades up significantly within a month. The long term outcome is that she's been able to use her new skills successfully on her own this year! read more

My daughter is a straight A student, but found the transition to high school rough. She used to procrastinate and she'd stay up late. She had trouble getting started on long-term projects. She'd get them done eventually, but not without getting panicked then frustrated with herself and crying. She was still getting straights A's, but her stress level was sky high, and she said none of her teachers knew or cared. I was seriously worried about her. She kept telling me this was just what high school was. My friend Sandy B. recommended GOALs. My daughter pretty much only went to the intake session because I made her. We met with the Founder Philip. Right away he asked what she wanted to achieve. It became about her and what she wanted to accomplish. She was still a bit skeptical but willing to try, which was a shift. We signed her up for 1:1 Executive Function Training (EFT) with Micayla for 1 hour once a week and Productivity twice a week. EFT is where kids take time to think and talk about how they learn, their habits, etc and agree to take actionable steps each week to change. Productivity is essentially a study hall but my daughter needs this support to focus and work. WIth the support of GOALS, my daughter started reaching out to her teachers and her counselor and she discovered that of course they cared about her as a student. I get weekly reports from Micayla and I have a much better idea of what is causing my daughter stress and what she is working on. My daughter's stress level went down significantly and she is a lot more productive. We are in the last week of school and (knock on wood) so far her stress level has remained manageable and actually seems to have gone down in the past few days as she has been following her study plan for finals and long-term projects. read more

Phillip and his team have been one of the greatest assets discovered along my parenting journey. They've been role models for my son and myself, providing support and encouragement with often amazing results. Their communication is excellent, comprehensive emailed reports after each tutoring session and 1:1 meetings with tutors and Phillip on both schoolwork progress and attitude were always caring and insightful, what a great resource! read more

We were very happy with our experience using GOALS. My son was preparing for a big exam and had a lot of anxiety about taking standardized tests. After 8 weeks here, I can honestly say that we feel very prepared and his scores have improved. I was impressed at the strategic approach they took to better test taking. These are skills he can take with him throughout his academic career. I highly recommend these guys. They were very professional and knew how to work well with kids. read more

3 stars because I ended up getting good grades on my math finals when I was tutored here for math. Overall, this place is very disorganized and noisy, they have private rooms to be tutored in if you don't like the noise, but I just really don't like the environment. For private tutoring it's $95 an hour which is very expensive...and $25 an hour just to sit and study there. read more

The staff were very accommodating and helpful! The chemistry tutor, Phillip, was very helpful. My daughter really likes this place. Hopefully, she will carry the study habits that she has learned on to her college study. read more

I am so impressed with the knowledge base and professionalism of the staff here. Unlike most tutoring centers, GOALS works both on content support and on the habits necessary for learning efficiently. Most of the kids here are not thriving in school for one reason or another. Many are ADHD, high functioning aspbergers, you name it. The study spaces are high energy, humming like a productive hive. The friendly, respectful relationships between the kids and the staff are awesome to behold. 5 thumbs up! read more

GOALS was a very helpful experience for our son, who needed to transition from schoolwork which came easy to him naturally without a lot of study to dealing with work which he had to put effort into. The Executive Functioning coaching was helpful in getting him to structure his time more effectively and plan out work in advance rather than cramming at the last minute. The Productivity sessions were also helpful to give him both a place to study away from all the distractions at home (video games, Reddit, and the fridge), yet active enough to be much like the college study environment where he will need to be able to study in that type of environment. We started in his senior year of high school and now he is off to college at Syracuse in the Newhouse Broadcast and Digital Journalism program. I only wish we had started sooner. It would have made high school a bit more pleasant for all of us. read more

My son has attended Goals for the past 2 years for weekly tutoring. He is now working on ACT prep along with his tutoring session. I cannot praise Philip and his staff enough, this has been a truly positive learning experience for my son. I find the office staff friendly, easy to work with and very responsive to any email/text I send, GOALS definitely knows how to connect with kids and young adults. The after session reports are extremely helpful, they are able to give me insight into exactly what my son is working on, that he wouldn't necessarily share with me. Especially if he was frustrated or struggling with a teacher or subject. I highly recommend this office and love that they have therapy dogs! read more