Math tutoring open to all eighth graders
Helping children in need The Ponca City High School club chapters of BPA and FCCLA teamed up to help Santa Cause wrap gifts for children in the surrounding area on Monday, Dec. 13 at the Ponca City VFW. Santa Cause is a local charitable organization that provides Christmas gifts and books for children who wouldn’t have any gifts under the tree otherwise or are being raised by grandparents on a fixed income. In total BPA and FCCLA picked out and wrapped more than 300 gifts in support of 35 different families.
The Oklahoma State Department of Education is opening up a tutoring program to all eighth grade students in public schools.
Students who enroll in the Oklahoma Math Tutoring Corps will receive virtual tutoring, three times a week, from a qualified teacher or college student. All tutoring will be held outside of school hours. Tutoring services will begin on Jan. 11.
Dr. DaLana Hawkins, director of secondary curriculum, said, “This effort by OSDE recognizes the importance of algebra readiness for secondary students. It is an opportunity for our students to find additional academic support and address the unintended consequences of learning loss due to COVID-19.”
Registration for the 2022- 23 and 2023-24 school years will be available to seventh, eighth and ninth grade students. Details regarding enrollment for those programs will be available in the spring.
Beginning in the 2021-22 school year, the OSDE will recruit and hire up to 500 educators and college students to provide virtual tutoring services outside of school hours for up to 1,500 seventh through ninth graders. Each tutor will have a group of no more than three students and will meet virtually for 50-minute sessions, three times per week for nine weeks.
Tutoring for the inaugural 2021-22 school year will begin January 2022, while tutoring for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years is scheduled to begin in the fall.
For more information about the program and to enroll, go to sde.ok.gov/mathtutoring-corps. Enrollment closes on Wednesday, Dec. 22. The program is an initiative funded with approximately $5 million in federal relief funding and will help close pandemic-related gaps in math learning and algebra readiness.