MCS hiring college students to tutor
By: Latanya Powell
Issue date: 10/2/08 Section: Other Stories
Memphis City Schools want to hire you to combat the system-wide problem of students falling behind. The school district plans to hire between 2,000-3,000 college students to tutor elementary students who have fallen a grade behind their peers.
MCS began accepting applications Wednesday on their Web site. Hamer said MCS is looking for students who are in good standing with a college or university and have a sense of responsibility.
"We want students from a variety of disciplines," Hamer said, "as long as they have good personal skills and are gentle with kids."
There are approximately 9,000 elementary students in grades 3-5 and an additional 22,000 middle and high school students that are not in their age-appropriate grade level.
Deputy Superintendent Irving Hamer, Jr., said the school system has to take drastic actions to lift the vast number children who are at least one grade level behind. The school system will begin implementing the program to work with elementary students this school year. Hamer said it was difficult to decide what could be done to ensure some students wouldn't be left out.
"The use of college students to tutor elementary children has been used before in other places, but never with this number of kids. It's groundbreaking on terms of the scale," said Hamer.
Although the school system has recently suffered budget cuts, Hamer said that the tutors are not replacing teachers. He said the tutors are not permanent employees and won't receive any benefits, such as health care.
"We still have a responsibility to educate children, and we can't just throw them away," said Hamer. "If we don't do something about them, they have been thrown away."
The program will cost $1.7 million, which includes the hourly wages, training for the tutors and supplies for the students to use. Tutors will work six hours per week for 10 weeks. They will be paid $10 an hour. The school system will finance a portion of the money for this program, and hopes to raise the rest of the money from organizations within the community.
MCS began accepting applications Wednesday on their Web site. Hamer said MCS is looking for students who are in good standing with a college or university and have a sense of responsibility.
"We want students from a variety of disciplines," Hamer said, "as long as they have good personal skills and are gentle with kids."
There are approximately 9,000 elementary students in grades 3-5 and an additional 22,000 middle and high school students that are not in their age-appropriate grade level.
Deputy Superintendent Irving Hamer, Jr., said the school system has to take drastic actions to lift the vast number children who are at least one grade level behind. The school system will begin implementing the program to work with elementary students this school year. Hamer said it was difficult to decide what could be done to ensure some students wouldn't be left out.
"The use of college students to tutor elementary children has been used before in other places, but never with this number of kids. It's groundbreaking on terms of the scale," said Hamer.
Although the school system has recently suffered budget cuts, Hamer said that the tutors are not replacing teachers. He said the tutors are not permanent employees and won't receive any benefits, such as health care.
"We still have a responsibility to educate children, and we can't just throw them away," said Hamer. "If we don't do something about them, they have been thrown away."
The program will cost $1.7 million, which includes the hourly wages, training for the tutors and supplies for the students to use. Tutors will work six hours per week for 10 weeks. They will be paid $10 an hour. The school system will finance a portion of the money for this program, and hopes to raise the rest of the money from organizations within the community.