Introduction
Tutor Zone is proud to offer an ensemble of programs fit for students in the ABC school district that range in their areas of subject matter and lesson format. We are continually striving to make opportunities available for children in every grade level (K-12) who want to engage in entertaining academic workshops, and fun, in-person or online learning events. With the district partnership 7-years strong (and counting!), Tutor Zone has been instrumental in its provision of educational support for families, particularly for school children who fall under the poverty line, and for parents who are in search of extra study time for their kids.
Summer Enrichment
Math and Creative Writing Enrichment Courses are available for incoming 7th and 9th grade students via small-group, online classes during the summer to allow middle and high schoolers to keep their their Math and English skills sharp before entering in the new school year. The Math course is designed especially for students who were not offered summer school or Bridge programs, allowing these students who mainly received Bs and Cs in their classes to sharpen their skills before a new academic year. The Math classes are built around a Modeling Mathematics Approach, which motivates students in their study of the subject as they learn to recognize how math is present in our everyday lives. Included in the lesson material are the core fundamentals that are most relevant to each grade-level-specific curriculum, such as integer practice, fractions, equations, percentages, and much more! The small-group settings allow instructors to work closely with their students and monitor their progress in the course. As a daily activity, tutors will walk students through presentation examples ranging in complexity using various fun, online-learning tools to ensure that they are truly grasping the concepts.
The Creative Writing course focuses on bringing different styles of expression and imagination into the students’ writing. Similar to Math, the Writing Enrichment Course makes learning exciting by providing new, daily activities and presentation content for the students to review. The core fundamentals of the class include the study of character development, figurative language, revise writing, and many other topics that prepare students for the rigor of the next school year’s curriculum. The students are also given the chance to implement the concepts learned in class as they work to build their own original writing pieces throughout the duration of the course. They have a choice between three mediums: short stories, journal entries, or personal essays. The students’ original work is then entered into a contest where the top entry (one entry is selected from both the 7th and 9th grade class, respectively) is named the winner of the Writing Enrichment Summer Competition. The student author is then awarded Tutor Zone’s very own College Coaching Package prize, which is valued at $799 and offers personal, one-on-one guidance during the college application process in the student’s Junior year.
Other programs
Our ABC partnership has not only led to the establishment of summer programs but also year-round programs that focus on serving students of different grades and academic needs. To list a few, we created programs such as Homework Zone and In the Zone to offer in-person and online after-school homework assistance to K-12 students. Additionally, we created a similar after-school program called the Special Needs program to specifically assist students with learning disabilities. Focusing on filling in any academic gaps and preparing students for upcoming state testing, we launched Tetzlaff Bootcamp and collaborated with various middle schools such as Ross Middle School and Carmenita Middle School to host English and math tutoring sessions.
At Tutor Zone, we are also dedicated to our mission of ensuring student readiness for college. Through our partnership with the ABC Unified School District, we also established the College Coaching Academy which is a year-long program designed to instruct high school juniors about the qualifications that colleges may expect from newly admitted undergraduates. In this program, we host personal essay workshops in which students analyze essay prompts and receive guidance on how to write their application essays. Moreover, the College Coaching Academy program also hosts application workshops where students ask our instructors any questions they may have about the college admissions application component. Nevertheless, the College Coaching Academy is not the only program we have that is dedicated to helping high school students who are seeking to further their education. Knowing the importance of AP exams to future undergraduates, we created the AP Courses program to help build upon concepts covered in class and provide practice material to prepare students for their AP exams.
Amid the height of the pandemic, the ABC Unified School District and Tutor Zone also sought ways to continue assisting students while following safety measures. Therefore, we established the Distant Learning program which included Tutoring Lab and Independent studies. In Tutoring Lab, students would join our online sessions during ABC Unified School District’s Wednesday Asynchronous day if they had homework, projects, or assignment questions. We also encouraged students to join Tutoring Lab sessions if they needed a quiet, academically geared space where they can do their work. As for Independent studies, students met with our tutors online to receive weekly instruction on Science, Math, History, and English and clarify any questions about their school material.
Conclusion
Since our partnership with the ABC Unified School District, we have provided 100 students with two practice SAT exams and over six hours of instruction to help increase their scores. Not only that, we are currently offering seven students, with an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP), 30 hours of one-on-one instruction each. Now, what do the students say about our programs? A survey was conducted on the students of Haskell, Tetzlaff, Ross, and Carmenita Middle School by Tutor Zone in which we asked students to rate their in-person tutoring sessions from one to five. Out of 159 responses, only 10% gave their tutoring sessions a one/two rating, while 78% of students gave it a four/five rating. We at Tutor Zone are incredibly grateful to the ABC Unified School District for supporting our business and partnering with us to establish not only informative but also life-changing programs.
Written By Jessica Rivera and Daisy Ocampo