Tutors for summer hired in Springfield

Monday, June 21, 2010
By PETER GOONAN
pgoonan@repub.com

SPRINGFIELD - The School Department has hired a Dorchester-based, national nonprofit company to provide a summer learning program for approximately 300 students.

Building Educated Leaders for Life, known as BELL, will provide mentoring, tutoring and enrichment services to eighth-grade students who are headed into high school free of charge to the students. The summer program is targeting those students deemed at risk of being unsuccessful in the ninth grade.

The cost of the program is estimated at $500,000, with the School Department paying $175,000, and the balance covered by private funds and grants.

The program will be operating from June 28 through Aug. 6, at the High School of Commerce, Central High School, Roger L. Putnam Vocational-Technical High School and the High School of Science and Technology. The program is provided free to the students, for 6.5 hours a day, Monday through Friday.

BELL previously provided a summer program in Springfield in 2008, targeting about 800 students who were completing the fifth and eighth grades and were failing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests.

The students in 2008 were able to gain nine months of grade-equivalent skills in literacy and mathematics, and those who were at risk of not being able to advance to the next grade were able to do so after completing the program successfully, according to BELL.

This year, BELL is also working with the School Department to identify those students who are statistically likely to drop out, and working with the students to develop skills needed to finish high school and apply to college, BELL officials said.

BELL, founded in 1992, provides educational services to nearly 12,000 students in Boston, New York City, Baltimore, Detroit and Springfield.