Metro Schools Seeking Kids For Free Tutoring

Fourteen thousand Metro students are eligible for free tutoring and right now only a handful, 460, are signed up for it.

If a Metro student is enrolled in one of the district’s 27 underperforming schools, and qualifies for free and reduced lunch, he or she is eligible for free tutoring under No Child Left Behind.

Last year 11,000 students could’ve signed up for the tutoring paid for by federal dollars – only 2,000 did.

Phyllis Dyer oversees the program and says 20%participation is pretty standard nationwide, but admits there could be more done to advertise the service to parents. Right now, most of the p.r. is happening at individual schools.

“One of the ways that they do it is just through community information and we have in our department we have parent liaisons that have really been helping us get the word out.”

Those parent liaisons generate word of mouth, but it’s up to individual schools to send direct mail to parents. The district’s $5 million Title I fund can legally only go towards tutoring, so school’s have to use their own Title I funds to send information home to parents, and not all do that.

Thanks to a U.S. Department of Education pilot program, the district can pay for TV, radio, and phone campaigns about tutoring. They hope to produce those this year.

There are about 20 companies contracted with the district for tutoring, and depending on how many students they tutor, it can pay well.

web extra:
Title I money pays for tutoring and any transportation students may need. The per pupil allotment is the same for every student, about $1,450. How far that money goes depends on which company a parent chooses. Some companies only offer 20 total hours of tutoring, others offer as many as 60 hours. Either way, as long as those promised hours are completed, the company makes $1,450 per student. If a student only shows up half the time, the company is only allowed to bill the district half the per pupil allotment.