Last updated: June 2026
This is the plain-English summary of the Independent Contractor Agreement (the “ICA”) every tutor signs before their first session. It is meant to set expectations early; the executable contract is shared after your application moves forward and is the binding version.
If anything here would be a deal-breaker for you, please tell us in your application. We would rather talk it through up front.
You are engaged as an independent contractor, not an employee, of Capital Learning Collective LLC, a District of Columbia limited liability company. You set your own subjects, grade bands, and availability. You receive a 1099 at year-end and are responsible for your own income, self-employment, and any other applicable taxes.
You are not entitled to employee benefits, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, or any other employment-related benefit from the Company.
The revenue split is structured to reward client acquisition:
The Company designs and provides proprietary teaching guides, lesson plans, assessments, worksheets, and curriculum frameworks (the “Materials”). Materials are the exclusive property of Capital Learning Collective LLC.
You may use Materials only to teach Company-assigned sessions. You may not reproduce, distribute, publish online, share with other tutors or institutions, resell, or use Materials to teach private clients outside the collective.
IP assignment for any work you create. To the maximum extent permitted by law, any work product you create in the course of providing services to the Company (including notes, adaptations of Materials, custom worksheets, student progress records, and recordings) is deemed work made for hire under 17 U.S.C. § 101. To the extent any such work does not qualify as work made for hire, you irrevocably assign to the Company all right, title, and interest in and to that work, including all copyrights, trade secrets, and other intellectual property rights, effective upon creation.
Pre-existing materials. If you bring your own materials (created before this engagement and outside its scope), you retain ownership and grant the Company a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free license to use them in delivering the services.
Return on termination. Within seven (7) days of the end of the engagement, you will return or permanently delete all Materials and confidential information in your possession.
You will treat as confidential, and not use or disclose outside the engagement, the Company’s non-public information, including Materials, business plans, pricing, family lists, student records, session notes, and internal communications.
This obligation lasts three (3) years after the engagement ends for general confidential information and indefinitely for trade secrets and family/student information.
For twelve (12) months after the engagement ends, you will not solicit, or directly accept paid tutoring, consulting, or coaching engagements from, any family or student you were introduced to through the Company, or any tutor in the collective you worked with, except through the Company. This protects the Company’s investment in matching, training, and Materials.
You agree to complete a background check (including a sex-offender registry check and, where applicable, a child-abuse registry check) before your first session and to recheck annually. The Company covers the cost.
District of Columbia law (D.C. Code § 4-1321.02) requires anyone with knowledge of, or reasonable cause to suspect, child abuse or neglect to report it. You acknowledge this responsibility and agree to report any concern to the appropriate authorities and to notify the Company promptly.
Any dispute arising under this Agreement will first be addressed by good-faith negotiation for at least 30 days, then by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Commercial Rules, held in the District of Columbia. The Agreement is governed by District of Columbia law. Both parties waive the right to a jury trial.