L.R.
Don't know the Frisco location but our daughter has gone to our local Mathnasium (D.C. area) every summer for the past five summers and will go again this year.
They are not like Kumon, which (I understand) does multiple subjects. Mathnasium does only do one subject so they are much more focused, and unlike with Kumon, your child will not bring home any worksheets or "homework" to do between sessions; all the work is done at the tutoring center, not at home (they do consider their assessment tests and worksheets to be proprietary, so if that's an issue for you and you really want all that brought home so you can check it -- look elsewhere). The no-homework deal works well for our child in the summer -- she knows she won't have worksheets hanging over her head all the time. The director of course will sit down with us and show us her specific worksheets any time we ask.
The hours (here at least) also are very flexible; they ask you to list the times you expect to bring in your child each week, but if you need to switch times or just turn up at a different time because your kid's in a different summer camp this week, or you have a family trip next week -- our center is totally fine with that. Do check, though, to see if the Frisco center is as flexible; it may or may not be.
Your child does not get one person who sits there next to her every second. She comes in, gets her personal binder and goes to a table and then a tutor comes over to her and uses the binder to see where she is that week; the tutor works with her on new concepts then lets her work on her own for a while on problems while the tutor moves on to check on other kids who are there. The tutor comes back around to check on your child's work, correct and explain, etc.
If your child would work better with the same person every single time, you might look instead at one on one tutoring in your home. It just depends on how your child learns best! Sometimes, if you change up the days you're coming on different weeks, your child will get different tutors at Mathnasium (though if your child comes at the same general times each week you're likely to get the same couple of folks all summer long). But I don't see the point in paying for a tutor to sit there while my child does problems -- I'm fine with the tutors circulating to work with each kid. They always come back to my kid when she's done with her problems, or if she hits a snag and has a question.
If your child would be distracted by being in a room with other kids present, then it's also not for her; however, I have noticed that the room at our center is always quiet and the kids are there to work, not talk or mess around. The tutors and director at our center are friendly and joke and talk with the kids some, but definitely would not tolerate a goof-off atmosphere.
The tutors are college kids including graduate students and that seems to work fine. If you would prefer a professional adult like a retired teacher or a teacher doing summer work as tutor, that's fine too. The director of our center is a former engineer and he also tutors kids personally.
I would suggest that you make an appointment to talk to the center director in person and ask how their approach works, why they don't send home worksheets, how they assess and track kids' work, etc. Mathnasium has worked well for our child and our summer schedule. My one wish is that they had early morning hours but they just don't - they are open here from about 11 until 7, but we work with that. I can see how for some kids this model just wouldn't work as well as an individual tutor, but for our child it works.
