The recent case of a San Ramon tutor physically abusing his students has people asking how safe and trustworthy at-home tutors actually are.

San Ramon man Hyungwoo Lee was arrested on suspicion of physically abusing the South Korean teenage exchange students that he provided with room, board and academic help.

Lee allegedly beat one of his students with a stick and forced the other students to watch and participate in the beatings, according to the San Ramon Patch  online news site.

Most students are unaware this incident occurred, and those who know about it do not think it would happen in the San Ramon community.

“I’m astonished that something like this could happen in San Ramon,” said freshman Bryce Oberhauser-Lim.

Oberhauser-Lim said while this reported incident of abuse would not change his opinion of tutors, it would make him more cautious about who he would hire as a tutor.

Others, such as senior Hayden Christensen, said they would get help from friends or school-sponsored programs instead of using an at-home tutor.

Senior Varun Battu, who tutors students from his home, said he is angry that this happened because most tutors are not like this.

“I’m just there to help the kids,” said Battu.

Battu also said people should not let this one incident change their opinion of tutors as a whole.

He hadn’t heard about any such occurence prior to the report of Lee’s alleged abuse.

This kind of incident isn’t commonplace, and doesn’t affect students’ decisions to approach tutors when they are in need of help.

Senior Joel Castro agreed, saying this would not affect his decision whether to get a tutor if he needed one.

While junior Devin Morris found this incident disgusting, she said her tutoring experiences have been very positive.

“My tutor was a really nice guy,” said Morris. “He would never do something like this.”

This incident is just an outlier among the many tutoring programs in San Ramon.

The San Ramon Valley Unified School District, however,  does not advise students to hire at-home tutors in order to ensure the safety of students.

For the past two years, the district has had a policy of not recommending any independent at-home tutors to prevent incidents like this from happening.  It also protects the school from liability and students from harm.

Instead, the district recommends using the resources provided by the school such as National Honor Society (NHS) tutors, said counselor Maria DuBose.

“How can we recommend someone that we don’t know?” said DuBose. “It’s not only to protect us, but to protect our students.”

For students looking for help, NHS offers tutoring during lunch on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in S-12. Additional math help is available in Room 221.