CHARLOTTE, N.C. — There’s a great need for tutors in the Charlotte region. Community groups and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools are now coming together through a new collaborative called Tutor Charlotte to look for volunteer tutors in math and reading.
Tutor Charlotte -- which includes Augustine Literacy Project Charlotte, the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Heart Math Tutoring, Helps Education Fund, and Read Charlotte -- is looking for 800 tutors.
It comes as CMS students continue to struggle in math and reading after the pandemic caused a setback for students.
“Data has shown there has been some learning loss because of the pandemic, so CMS is working very hard to recover any of those learning losses," Ally Financial executive director LaShauna Lowry, a member of the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council, said.
Even before COVID-19, CMS students struggled to grasp math and reading skills — but now that students continue to fall behind, there’s a push to recover.
“It’s a huge priority, we want our students to be able perform, be confident,” Lowry said.
One strategy is to increase tutoring.
“There's absolutely more of a need than ever, more students would benefit from having tutors," Kate Bradstreet, deputy director of Read Charlotte, said.
Through the website Tutor Charlotte, most volunteers commit to a training session and one or two hours per week during school hours. The goal is to make it easier to connect tutors to the right organizations.
“Providing that one-on-one help is one of the best ways to get kids back on track, and it isn’t just academic support tutoring can help a student feel more successful and encourage them in their learning too, we want to make sure there are no barriers," Bradstreet said.
According to research and data from Read Charlotte, tutoring by trained adults is one of the few proven universal strategies to improve children’s reading.
CMS leaders are hopeful more people will step up, to help fill the gaps.
“I think we have so many people who want to lean in and help so I think we can do 800 easily," Lowry said.
Volunteers are accepted throughout the school year for both reading tutors and math tutors, and virtual tutoring is also an option.
Contact Lexi Wilson at lwilson@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.