Meet the friends of The House of Tutor. These are the members of our exclusive collaborative. As part of a team of inclusive, supportive, and talented educators, the friends below are available to assist with a range of academic challenges and interests.
Zachary Leonard
Growing up and attending university in the Upper Midwest, Zachary is quick to point out that even the coldest day in Los Angeles is warm by his standards. In an effort to escape the frigid temperatures, Zachary spent a great deal of his collegiate career indoors conducting research on the Visual system in a Cognitive Neuroscience lab and another year studying Evolutionary Biology.
After graduating Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Psychology and minors in Neuroscience and Zoology, Zachary decided to leave the Midwest and move to Los Angeles (the weather may or may not have played a significant role in that decision).
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Since moving to L.A., Zachary has spent the past few years preparing students for both the ACT and SAT. Employing anecdotes, analogies, and alliterations, he focuses on helping students speak the language of the test. He relishes every incredulous “That’s it?” when a student successfully answers a question they initially thought was beyond their abilities.
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When he’s not tutoring, Zachary enjoys writing, films, stand-up comedy, and having his loyalty tested by the ever-terrible Minnesota Timberwolves basketball team.
Donna Lazar
Donna is an experienced educator with over 20 years of tutoring in a wide range of subjects, from test preparation to academic coaching. A graduate of New York University, where she double-majored in Theater and Philosophy, Donna began her career in education with one of the nation’s largest test-preparation companies, where she developed a reputation for creating personalized strategies that helped students reach their goals.
Her desire to work more closely with students and craft tailored learning experiences led her to A-List Education, where she spent several years both tutoring and contributing to the development of curriculum and tutor training. After moving back to Los Angeles, Donna worked with a number of test prep companies, helping them refine their programs and improve student outcomes along the way.
Building on these experiences, Donna founded The House of Tutor in Los Angeles, an exclusive collaborative of highly skilled, expert career educators. This carefully curated team of professionals is dedicated to providing individualized, top-tier tutoring across a wide range of academic subjects, including the SAT, ACT, ISEE, SSAT, and GRE. Donna’s approach is centered around making challenging material approachable and engaging, empowering students to exceed their academic potential.
Donna’s tutoring style is anything but traditional. She believes learning should be as engaging as it is educational, so she brings a mix of creativity, humor, and energy to every session. Whether she’s making a tricky math problem feel like a brain-teaser challenge or turning a dry reading passage into a dramatic performance, Donna knows how to make even the most daunting subjects approachable and fun. Her goal isn’t just to teach; it’s to empower students with the tools, confidence, and mindset they need to tackle any problem, inside or outside the classroom. With her dynamic, personable approach, Donna ensures that learning feels like a partnership, not a lecture, and that students not only understand the material—they enjoy it.
At The House of Tutor, Donna and her team work together to create a supportive environment where learning is both enjoyable and effective. Donna is proud of the collaborative spirit at the heart of the service, which focuses on empowering students and making their academic journey a positive and successful one.
Noah Fish
Originally from San Diego, California, Noah left the sunshine of the west coast to continue his acting career at New York University’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. During his summers, he found a love for teaching after he founded Source 4 Studios, a summer intensive for High Schoolers, addressing the English language arts, theater, music and college preparation. This intensive also focused on college essay prep and helping students find their own voice in their writing, a skill that proves invaluable when it comes to writing personal statements and preparing for interviews.
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After graduation, he continued to work at NYU as an instructor before setting out across the country (and Canada, eh?), touring with a number of theater productions. Over the past 10 years of teaching, his passion for the arts and education has cultivated in Noah an attentiveness and compassion that he brings to each student that he works with. He specializes in finding and fostering what makes each student unique (read: appealing to colleges!) Outside The House of Tutor, Noah can be found painting, playing guitar, running down Riverside Drive, and hosting puzzle games at Escape the Room NYC, helping competitive New Yorkers decipher puzzles and riddles in an attempt to problem solve their way out of challenging, fully-immersive brainteasers.
Jon Sprik
A Fulbright scholar hailing from Michigan, Jon has been tutoring and teaching in many different arenas—from the elementary school classroom to the university hall to one-on-one in your living room—for the last decade. He spent his undergraduate career studying psychology and Spanish and went on to earn a Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre.
Jon has worked with over 600 students both in and out of the classroom with wonderful success. He utilizes his out-going nature to create a fun atmosphere for the students and make progress toward their target scores. Jon also has a passion for special needs and is active in non-profit programming. When not guiding young minds to high scores, you can find Jon on the stage or big and small screens.
