When I interviewed Cindy Mummert in the fall of 2019, she arrived with resource note cards for every concept she taught me and wowed me with the way she taught to all different learning needs. Cindy had 25 years’ experience teaching math at all levels, and she also knew the SAT. I hired her immediately to teach both Math and test prep, and she transferred her SAT skills to the ACT with ease.

Cindy had not yet learned the ACT Science test, and Erin Brenneman, also new to RTC, needed to relearn her advanced math, so the two friends teamed up in a mentoring partnership. Cindy reports, “I loved collaborating with Erin to deepen and broaden my science knowledge! In addition, working with Erin on math allowed me to see ACT Math concepts through her eyes; she really prompted me to explain how I teach math on multiple levels.” Both are such good teachers that they made one another masters very quickly.

I very often assign Cindy to students who either love structure, or students who need structure and accountability. Some of our students arrive to us without study skills, and their test prep program is the first place they learn to study. Cindy is also especially skilled at getting students to pay attention to the details of test-taking: all the tiny ways they can pick up extra points. She’s equally talented at helping an ACT student reach a 23 or a 33. Cindy also studies mindfulness, and she is incredibly conscientious about incorporating RTC’s mindfulness strategies into each lesson so that her students are confident and prepared for the mental game of test prep. She remarks, ”It would be easy to think that test success only hinges on mastery of concepts and test strategies, but managing test day anxiety is a fundamental part of the game! In my experience, students who recognize and manage test anxiety have a big advantage — not to mention going into test day knowing they have targeted, practiced mindfulness strategies.”

One of Cindy’s biggest challenges came during the COVID spring of 2019. She was excited to complete her first test prep programs, and we were ready to run up the Art Museum steps together to celebrate on her students’ first ACT test day (Really!); then the tests were all canceled when the pandemic closed schools. What followed was six months of keeping our kiddos ready for an eventual test without making them exhausted. Cindy remembers, “Despite the challenges of the last year and a half, it was a positive growth experience to reconfigure how we prepare students for tests. It was a solid reminder that teaching is also very much about learning and adapting.”

We made it through those awful months, and Cindy has enjoyed her work with RTC students in her time since. When she reflects on where we are now in working with students, Cindy remarks, “It’s great to have the flexibility, resources, and skills to tutor virtually. Really, I think that’s what RTC is all about — personalizing tutoring to individual students’ needs.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.