By JOSEPHINE JOHNSON
Adobe Stock photo
The College Park City Council on Sept. 17 approved $40,000 for a tutoring program for Hollywood Elementary School’s Spanish-speaking students.
Amplify Tutoring offers reading tutoring to 24 Hollywood students in third to fifth grades.
Of the elementary school’s 301 students, 230 are learning English as a second language.
“They need this type of program to ensure that they’re reading, they’re listening, they’re comprehending what they’re listen[ing] to … and then read as well as write,” Carlos Johnson, Hollywood Elementary School’s principal, said.
The $40,000 will allow the students to continue using the program this school year. The school offered the tutoring for four months last spring, paid for by Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS). During the prior three school years, the school used a different vendor, funded by the city, for tutoring.
Students meet virtually three times a week in groups of four for a 30-minute live tutoring session during the school day as it fits their schedules. The program focuses on students in third to fifth grades, with a goal to equip those students with the literacy skills they need for middle school.
Amplify Tutoring embeds the tutoring in the school day with the same adult instructors for each session. The teachers use instructional materials that are based on research about effective tutoring.
“Not all tutoring is effective because it’s not all strategically planned and data driven,” Lindsay Sullivan, Amplify’s associate vice president, told the council.
Sullivan pointed to Amplify students at a Midwestern school district whose reading skills improved 37% during the 2022-2023 school year compared with a boost of 25% for students who did not participate.
College Park’s Education Advisory Committee recommended that the council approve the funding, as long as the school does not receive additional funding for tutoring from the county.
“I was very impressed with how [Amplify does] their tutoring and their success that they had [at Hollywood Elementary] in just four short months of last year, that they brought the students’ reading ability up,” City Councilmember Maria Mackie (District 4) said.
Councilmember Jacob Hernandez (District 1) said he looks forward to further success.
“If I could, I would try to carve [the] entirety of our budget to try and help the schools that we have here in College Park,” Hernandez said, “although it seems like PGCPS, with as much money as it has, still can’t figure it out.”
