Tutoring Program To Start At AP Rec Center

Avon Park will soon host a privately run tutoring program at its recreation center near Memorial Field for roughly 50 students from five of the county's underperforming schools.

Niqui Pringle-Brown, the executive director of Lakeland-based 5-Star Tutoring Services, said the free tutoring services will focus on reading and math lessons when it starts Oct. 15. The tutoring sessions will be available to students from Fred Wild, Woodlawn, Lake Country, Sun 'n Lake or Park elementary schools as well as anyone who's registered for any other activity at the Avon Park Recreational Center.

The tutoring services are part of the No Child Left Behind Act. The five schools included in this program did not make certain improvements and legally have to offer free tutoring. Last year, 5-Star tutored Hopewell Academy before the school closed down.

Pringle-Brown said this new tutoring program isn't a replacement for what they offered in Hopewell, but she referred to it as an "extension." The sessions will last up to 90 minutes, once or twice a week for 18 weeks to get children ready for the FCAT in March.

The recreation center will bus some of the children over there after school, according to the agreement made between the city and 5-Star.

If parents want their children from one of those five schools to go to the tutoring sessions, Pringle-Brown said they could fill out an application at their school for it.

On the city's end, City Manager Sarah Adelt expects to get $8,000 from 5-Star if it's able to enroll at least 50 students.

The tutoring program will operate across Memorial Field from the Boys and Girls Club, which also offers some after-school tutoring. Since opening in Avon Park, the Boys and Girls Club has been nearly full.

Avon Park Councilman Al Joe Hinson was concerned last week that 5-Star and the Boys and Girls Club might compete with each other for the same students, even though the rest of the city council believed the demand was high enough for both programs to coexist.