It’s been a tremendous tool for us.”Īfter all, she said, they are the ones in the tutoring sessions, who are best placed to hear what’s working and what’s not working-and how the school can tweak the program along the way, rather than at the year’s end.Is it possible to simultaneously fulfill our corporate business mission and our corporate social responsibility? We think so. “It’s really having the students’ voice telling us how the program is going for them and what they’d like to see to enhance the program. “It gives us some insight on what conflicts they might be having or what they might like to work on or see more of,” she said. Students are surveyed every other week to gauge their experience and get feedback. They factor in the students’ personalities and whether they’d enjoy working with a particular tutor. To help with that messaging, McInerney, the vice principal, and the school’s supervisor speak to students privately and introduce them to their tutor. The message to students amounted to this: “You are super-bright, and this is to give you that individualized time that you need to work on what you need to work on, and do whatever you want to do,” she said. So instead, educators communicated to students that their teachers thought the tutoring support could help them now and also later with their SATs and future challenges, she said. “They don’t want to be pulled out of a class and made to think, ' You’re being pulled out because you don’t know how to do this, this, or this,’” she said. So they tried to turn it into a positive thing. McInerney and her staff were aware of how students might respond to the idea that they need tutoring or how they’d be perceived by their peers. It used students’ feedback to make improvements. “You can spend more individual time with students, and it also gives you the ability to tackle all that needs to be done for those six students.”ĥ. “I feel that it’s more time intensive,” McInerney said. While the ratio has occasionally increased to nine students per tutor, the sweet spot is six, she said. If students are working on writing math expressions, for example, the tutor can pull aside a student or two to help with them if they need more individualized attention. The school strives for small groups, ideally about six students to one tutor, with enough flexibility for one-on-one support when necessary. It kept tutoring groups relatively small. This way, you identify what those students need … It helps us to make sure that we are moving our students forward constantly.” 4. “You don’t want the seven getting bored and not be engaged. “Nothing works if you have nine kids in a room and seven of them have mastered one thing and two have not,” McInerney said. “So if it’s a phonics piece, or a writing piece, or math, it will show exactly where the student needs that extra support,” McInerney said.Īn in-house coordinator who manages the program, monitors students’ grades and shares them with each tutor within 24 hours, along with the student’s work and what the student needs to focus on. FastBridge provides supplemental work to help teachers and students identify where students may be falling short. The school uses the FastBridge program, which assesses students six times a year, with the first test in October, on the Common Core State Standards they’re learning and whether they are mastering them. The tutoring sessions are meant to pinpoint core concepts students are missing. It aligned tutoring with core classroom instruction. McInerney and her team wanted to avoid taking away the important play time they got in a safe environment on campus. “It’s so time-intensive … It’s like a huge moving puzzle.”Īlso, many of the students live in communities scarred by violence or in homes with multiple family members, making it hard for children to invite friends over to play. “I can’t get over it sometimes,” she said. Largely, the school found the time in the day by being more efficient, including during passing periods and lunch.Īs anyone who works in schools knows, putting together a school schedule is a little bit “like brain surgery,” McInerney said. No other instructional time was sacrificed, McInerney said. The 56-minute, three-times-a-week sessions were added to the school day as special math and English lab periods. (In non-academic areas, they also participate in school dance, prom or other activities, even though they’re not required to.) The tutors have become part of the school community, working closely with the students’ classroom ELA and math teachers. The school’s regular math and ELA teachers are also enlisted as tutors, with the ELA or math lab, in which the tutoring is provided, counting as one of the six periods they teach daily, McInerney said.
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