Giving an academic boost

After most students go home at the end of the school day, some elementary students head to small-group tutoring sessions a couple of days a week to improve their math, reading and writing skills.

Funded with federal money, the after-school tutoring started in September or October and ended last week or will be this week in most of the school district's nine elementary schools.

Principals say the tutoring sessions, which focus mainly on math and reading, have helped struggling third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students improve their performance on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

FCAT testing in reading, math and science starts March 9 and ends March 19.

Sun 'n Lake Elementary Principal Diane Lethbridge said, "We feel that we have gotten excellent results because last year the subgroups that we targeted showed marked improvement on the FCAT."

In 2009, the school was very close to earning an "A" accountability grade and the federal AYP Adequate Yearly Progress designation, which is based on the progress of a number of economic, racial and academic subgroups of students.

According to last year's FCAT scores, the subgroup which needed the most help comprised students who qualified for free or reduced priced lunch and who had low reading scores.

Some of the 58 students who were tutored at Sun 'n Lake Elementary this year belonged to that group, although the program was open to all students regardless of their economic status, Lethbridge said.

The program started early this year - around the end of September, she said.

"We felt that we needed to maintain these kids throughout the year," Lethbridge said. "We put them in groups of about eight to 10 students, and we worked on reading and math and a little bit of writing."

The 90-minute after-school tutoring sessions, which will end Thursday, were held on Mondays and Thursdays.

The students are tested at the beginning and end of the tutoring program.

The Sun 'n Lake students have already taken the "post" test, but the results have yet to be tabulated.

"Every year we have a changing population and the needs are different," Lethbridge noted. "We just work very hard to use the resources that are available and the time that we have to best meet the needs of those kids."

Park Elementary School's after-school tutoring program, with 120 students, ended last week.

With no more than 10 students to a teacher, the smaller learning settings are very beneficial for the students, Park Elementary Principal Brenda Longshore said.

"The teachers really did a super job by giving another couple of hours a week, and it will really make a difference, I think, with the students," she said.

Test results from previous years show the tutored students improved their FCAT test scores significantly, she said.

With no struggling subgroups of students, the school earned the AYP designation in 2009, so students who had low test scores were selected for the after-school tutoring program.

Woodlawn Elementary has 90 students - 30 each from grades three through five - in its after-school tutoring program, which ends today. The 75-minute tutoring sessions were held from 2:45-4 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Students were chosen for the program if they had 2009 math or reading FCAT scores in Level I or II. FCAT reading and math test scores fall into five achievement levels from one to five (low to high).

"Our data shows that we do have the students improving in reading and math," Woodlawn Elementary Principal Kay Bowers said.

In addition to math, reading and writing, Avon Elementary's tutoring program with 118 students also helped students with their science skills.

Federal Programs resource teacher Patricia Landress said the federal Title I funding is based on poverty levels (students who qualify for free or reduced priced lunch), but the funding is used for students who are not academically proficient.

On average, each elementary school in Highlands County received about $25,000 for the program, which covered teacher salaries, curriculum and transportation to get them home.

The tutoring program known as Supplemental Educational Services, under No Child Left Behind, differs in that it's open only to students who qualify for free or reduced priced lunch.