One-on-one tutoring for students can be downright unaffordable, but Virginia has launched a $30 million grant program that is meant to help families pay for those services.
Through the program, families can apply for a $1,500 grant per student that would go toward tutoring in English, math, science or history.
“A lot of families out there haven’t even looked into tutoring because they know it’s beyond their budget,” said Bonnie Myshrall, president of the Fairfax County Parents Association, which works to support students.
Children from homes with family incomes at 300% or less of the federal poverty level may qualify for $3,000 grants. For those who want to apply, the first step in the process is to visit the “learning acceleration grants” page set up by Virginia’s education department.
Once parents are notified their application has been accepted and approved, they will be able to log into a digital wallet to select from a variety of preapproved tutors. All grant payments will be issued directly by the education department to the tutors, with no out-of-pocket expenses to families.
“The application process is fairly quick,” Myshrall said. “The pandemic caused such great learning loss that to make up for it really requires high-quality tutoring.”
The scale of the pandemic’s disruption to American kids’ education was evident in a district-by-district analysis of test scores shared with The Associated Press. The data provide the most comprehensive look yet at how much schoolchildren have fallen behind academically.
The analysis found the average student lost more than half a school year of learning in math and nearly a quarter of a school year in reading — with some district averages slipping by more than double those amounts, or worse.
Online learning played a major role, but students lost significant ground even where they returned quickly to schoolhouses, especially in math scores in low-income communities.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
