'This is an academic booster shot': Fairfax Co. schools to offer free tutoring program
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — Fairfax County Public Schools is launching a free online tutoring program the week after spring break.
The school system is using federal funding from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund to team up with Tutor.com to start this program in mid-April.
“This is an academic booster shot for all of our Fairfax County Public School Students and it really is on demand tutoring at anytime, anywhere for elementary, middle and high school students across a variety of subjects in English, Math, Science, social studies and we’re super excited about being able to help students really finish some of their unfinished learning and accelerate their learning as we come out of this pandemic,” Scott Brabrand, Superintendent of FCPS, said.
Brabrand said the program is set to run through the rest of this current school year and for the next two academic school years to follow.
“Our teachers are doing some of the tutoring as well as they’re teaching every day, but our teachers are tired. We don’t have enough supply of teachers for after school for all the kids who want the tutoring. This is going to allow us to scale up tutoring for every kid, anyone who wants it in any subject,” Brabrand said.
Brabrand said the tutoring will also be available in Spanish, and FCPS is looking to broaden that to more languages. He said there will be no cap on how many hours a student can get help.
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“Every district in America, frankly every school district across the world has seen impacts from the pandemic and Fairfax County Public Schools has not been immune to those impacts. We recognize that we need to be doing all we can to really help kids finish the learning,” He said.
Brabrand continued, “Really it will be a game changer for kids who may go home after school and they don’t have mom and dad are still working or their grandparents or whomever they live with are working, and they don’t have that extra pair of hands at home to help them with their homework or get ahead with a project so I’m super excited about getting this in the hands of kids and having our families learning more about it.”
FCPS said each tutoring session will be recorded and transcripts will be made available.
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“We will have a strong safety component to go with the strong academic component that comes with tutoring. We will have this component for safety to make sure we can go back and review any of the sessions as needed, review the transcript, and make sure we’re getting a high-quality tutor and a very safe and secure environment for kids,” Brabrand said.
Once the program starts, FCPS will be tracking what growth they see in students.
“A lot of academic studies around the country have said small groups, or in this case individual, it’s going to be one-on-one tutoring, is one of the biggest markers associated with academic growth,” Brabrand said.
