Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 4, 1993 TAG: 9305040478
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Not only that, but her outlook on school brightened, her study habits improved and her other grades went up too.
She even likes history class now.
The grades also are in for the Radford High School Tutoring Program, which Young credits with helping to save her senior year from disaster.
By all reports, the cooperative venture, which pairs volunteer tutors from Radford University's Circle K Club with high schoolers who are failing at least one subject, is an unqualified success.
"I think it's a win-win situation," said Radford High School principal James "Buddy" Martin.
"It's one of the best activities we've been involved with."
Young was one of more than two dozen beneficiaries of the program, which began in February and just ended for this school year.
She praised her volunteer tutor, Radford University freshman Ryan Barber, for helping to make history understandable.
"It makes a lot more sense now," she said.
Mark Cruise, a preventional specialist with the New River Valley Community Service Board, coordinated the program and trained the tutors.
"We are very excited about the early results of this program," he said.
Among students who got help last semester, 17 grades went up, ten remained the same, and only one went down.
The results, he said, "attest to the fact that a one-on-one, caring relationship is a key to helping students excel."
He said the tutoring program builds upon trust and rapport between the tutor and student as a means to attack the academic problems.
But there's no magic formula either. Everyone involved agreed that students have to want to improve to see results.
"You've got to make the effort, too," Young said.
Cruise said the program's 19 "committed and reliable" tutors met with their assigned students for up to an hour a week.
Several students got help in more than one subject.
Guidance counselor Carolyn Canada helped coordinate referrals to the program.
"I'm very impressed," she said, calling it the "single most successful" academic-assistance effort the school has tried.
"Teachers were delighted," she added.
Once word of the program's success spread, she said, other students started coming to her office asking for tutors.
"We doubled up on the tutors," she said.
Canada also thinks college students provide positive role models for the high schoolers.
While the program is an all-volunteer effort, the Radford High School Foundation recently rewarded Radford University's Circle K Club with a $750 donation. That works out to about $5 an hour for each tutor's efforts.
Cruise said he expects the program to build upon its success when school resumes in the fall, but he also has invited Radford University summer-session students to continue tutoring those attending summer school.
by CNB