No Child Left Behind—but...

By Steven Gnagni
Managing Editor

Parents of students who attend Title I schools in Community School District 9 are struggling to meet a November 15 deadline to sign up with providers of afterschool tutoring services. The district will hold two more orientation sessions for parents on Monday, November 4 at 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

The afterschool tutoring program, called Supplemental Educational Services, will begin after Thanksgiving. The tutoring will be provided free of charge to students in Title I Schools as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which was passed in 2001. Title I schools are schools that have a high percentage of students living in poverty and low achievement levels. There are 17 Title 1 schools in District 9, including C.E.S. 11 and C.E.S. 73, both in Highbridge.

“Letters went out a couple of weeks ago,” said Melvin Thompson, who has been leading orientation sessions for the district. Parents who returned a tear-off form expressing interest received a service selection form.

Filling that form out is a two-step process.

First, parents have to use a list of providers (provided by the district) and select a provider based on the child’s needs. “The parents have to see what the providers are offering, and see which provider meets their child’s deficiencies,” Thompson said. Figuring that out entails either phone or in-person interviews with the providers.

Second, the parent has to give or send the form to the provider, who then fills out the form and returns it to the district.

District 9 has been ahead of the game in getting this information out to parents; some districts in New York City have yet to hold orientations. But because of the strict timeline and guidelines handed down from the federal government and the city’s Department of Education, parents have come across a number of stumbling blocks.

One problem: finding out information about the tutoring providers. The state’s Web site does not explain what specific needs providers address.

“We do explicit remediation in reading, for kids who struggle with reading,” says Alice Vogt, a reading specialist and director of the Reading Lab at Interfaith Neighbors, one of the providers listed on the state Web site as providing English tutoring. “It [the Web site] doesn’t tell you anything about the services. But that’s what we were allowed to say.”

A second problem: figuring out where the provider will provide tutoring. While the district’s packet is fairly comprehensive and provides locations for many providers, other providers have not determined their locations yet. The most local sites are SCORE! on 161st Street and Citizens Advice Bureau on Grand Concourse.

“Our location in the district will depend on the number of kids that choose us as a provider,” said James R. O’Neill of the Sports and Arts in Schools Foundation, another District 9 provider. “The goal would be to be as local as possible.”

Tied to the location problem is transportation. Interfaith Neighbors, for instance, is located on 82nd Street between 2nd and 3rd avenues. “The legislation states that it’s the district’s responsibility to pay for the services, but transportation, if necessary, is the parent’s responsibility,” Thompson said.

There’s a greater confusion surrounding money. Nobody at the district knows how many students will be served. If there’s not enough money to cover all of the students, the district will have to seek other funding sources or select students with the greatest need, or lowest assessment scores, according to Thompson.

A third problem: Students can only choose either English or math, and cannot receive tutoring in both.

"They capped us in the number of sessions, and they can only choose reading or math," said Daniel Fischetti of Fischetti Consulting Services, a District 9 provider located in Brooklyn. For individual tutoring, which Fischetti will conduct in the child's home, students will get only 14 hours of tutoring over the course of the year. If students choose group tutoring sessions, they will receive more hours of tutoring because the cost goes down for the provider.

A final problem: A number of the tutors offer online tutoring, and many Highbridge residents don’t have access to the Internet at home. Parents will have to make arrangements to use computer labs and neighbors’ computers.

Despite these problems, providers hope the program will be a success.

“It’s a great opportunity to help kids and provide the additional services that children need,” said Ken Miller, director of educational partnerships for Kaplan K-12 Learning Services, another District 9 provider.

But some providers are wary.

“Parents have to hold the government responsible for this program,” Vogt said.