Investments in tutoring will help support academic success across the Twin Cities
The Ciresi Walburn Foundation for Children today announced the recipients of grants as part of the Foundation’s 2021 Tutoring RFP. Aimed at helping to demonstrate how high-quality tutoring is one of the most promising, evidenced-based strategies to help students in the wake of learning loss due to the pandemic, the Foundation’s $144,500 investment in three organizations will help support academic success at schools across the Twin Cities.
The evidence is clear: tutors can offer crucial supplemental learning to help catch students up—studies have consistently shown large, positive impacts on improving educational achievement.
“The evidence is clear: tutors can offer crucial supplemental learning to help catch students up—studies have consistently shown large, positive impacts on improving educational achievement. ”
Through an affiliation with the AARP Foundation’s Experience Corps program, East Side Learning Center (ESLC) will recruit, vet, train, observe, and coach more than 100 volunteers to provide reading tutoring to more than 160 students across Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
Additionally, as the Foundation’s Executive Director Daniel Sellers wrote earlier this year, “Minnesota’s growing ranks of retirees—many of whom are seeking opportunities to give back—offer fertile ground for volunteer recruitment,” and the same can be said for “aspiring educators from teacher preparation programs at Minnesota’s colleges and universities [who could benefit from] much-needed hands-on experience with students.” Through the grants announced today, the Foundation is supporting organizations which plan to recruit from these groups in order to provide much-needed interventions for students who have fallen behind due to the ‘COVID slide.’
Through an affiliation with the AARP Foundation’s Experience Corps program, East Side Learning Center (ESLC) will recruit, vet, train, observe, and coach more than 100 volunteers to provide reading tutoring to more than 160 students across Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The Foundation’s $15,000 grant will help ESLC to provide more than 20 hours of training for the volunteers, rewrite and create a digital library of skill-based literacy activities, and assess student progress on key benchmarks.
“Support from the Ciresi Walburn Foundation will allow ESLC to bring together the community, teachers, parents, and volunteers to support struggling readers, ensuring that every child in our program reads at grade level by third grade and acquires the social-emotional skills needed to thrive and choose their own future,” said Executive Director Chris Flippo.
“Support from the Ciresi Walburn Foundation will allow ESLC to bring together the community, teachers, parents, and volunteers to support struggling readers, ensuring that every child in our program reads at grade level by third grade and acquires the social-emotional skills needed to thrive and choose their own future.”
A $30,000 grant to Great MN Schools will help provide literacy tutoring during the summer to students at Friendship Academy of the Arts, Hennepin School, and Prodeo Academy through a 30-day series customized lesson plans developed by Groves Academy, which has a proven track record of success in helping students learn how to read. Great MN Schools is working with teacher candidates from the University of St. Thomas to augment school staffing and to help deliver the literacy programming.
Great MN Schools will help provide literacy tutoring during the summer to students at Friendship Academy of the Arts, Hennepin School, and Prodeo Academy
Hopkins Public Schools Community Education (HPSCE) received a $99,500 grant to build on the existing and highly successful Royal Connections (RC) tutoring program. Current Hopkins High School students are hired, trained, and supported by Hopkins Public Schools Community Education to serve as RC Instructors and to deliver high-quality, no-cost tutoring to Hopkins Public Schools E-12 scholars. In addition to supporting students'' academic goals, the RC tutoring program seeks to increase the number of potential Teachers of Color as more than 40% of RC Instructors are Hopkins Students of Color.
HPSCE has set measurable, ambitious goals for the RC tutoring program, including increasing standardized test scores for historically underserved populations by 5%, increasing grades for historically underserved populations by 25%, and increasing the academic self-efficacy, leadership, and social competence of the tutors.
Current Hopkins High School students are hired, trained, and supported to serve as RC Instructors and to deliver high-quality, no-cost tutoring to Hopkins Public Schools E-12 scholars.
“Our teachers and scholars have come to rely on the support of RC,” said Alex Fisher, Hopkin’s Director of Community Education and Engagement. “Although we hope the immediate obstacles from the pandemic will end soon, its onset created long-lasting needs and taught us innovative ways to support our scholars flexibly. Even when we return to face-to-face learning, we have discovered that these flexible ‘anytime, anywhere’ tutoring experiences have expanded avenues of support and contributed to student success—a need that is not going away.”