PHOENIX — Arizona State Superintendent of Education, Tom Horne, announced a $40 million tutoring program for families to help improve their academics post-COVID. Originally, an announcement he made said funds, provided by the federal government, would be available for participating public school teachers or private approved tutoring vendors starting October 2.
However, families and school districts ABC15 spoke with say they have not heard much from the state about this program.
The announcement came on September 5, saying the tutoring would be done with participating school teachers, who would get up to an $8,000 stipend to provide it at their schools.
“We think this will be very good in helping the students be better academically and be good for the teachers because we don’t pay our teachers enough,” Horne said.
On September 15, the Achievement Tutoring Program webpage went live and parents were able to fill out an interest form.
“I know it's been almost a month right into it, and we're already doing parent-teacher conferences, so I wasn't sure when it was going to start or kind of. I haven't heard anything yet,” said Jessica Roza, who expressed interest in the program for her two elementary students.
On Tuesday, Horne told ABC15 they are working on getting contracts out to districts, which their respective school boards would need to approve before starting the program.
School districts told ABC15 they were still waiting for the state to provide more information and had questions.
“I spent the last week and a half in Northern Arizona, so I'm not totally up to date. When I left, I thought we were close to choosing vendors and having contracts ready to be approved by the school districts, so we'll just have to check into that,” Horne said.
Since the interest forms launched, the Arizona Department of Education said 645 parents filled out interest forms and nearly 90 school districts expressed interest in offering it.
“We’re trying to get the agreements with the districts now, so it’ll get started really soon,” Horne said, adding that parents may find out more information in ‘hopefully’ within two weeks.
For more information on how to get involved in the free tutoring program for students, click here.
