26th July 2010 9:00
By Blue Tutors
An organisation in Houston, HISD (Houston Independent School District), has recently launched a program to recruit tutors throughout the area to help students who are falling behind in maths. The program, called Apollo 20 will target nine secondary schools this year, and will be extended to eleven elementary schools in 2011-12. The project will cost $10 million, and at the moment the main focus is to recruit enough talented tutors to make the program a success.
Students will receive 2-on-1 maths tutoring daily if they falling behind grade level. This means that HISD need to quickly find 260 tutors who are happy to work full time with students at the targeted schools over the next academic year.
The tutors will earn $20,000 for 40 hour weeks for nine weeks, plus health insurance and up to a $5,000 bonus depending on performance. This works out at just $14 an hour, less than the average starting salary for a new teacher, but Jeremy Beard, school improvements office for Apollo 20 said that the role offers the tutors the kind of job satisfaction they wouldn’t get in other jobs.
Only about half of the positions have been filled so far, and only 30% of tutors applying have been successful, each taking a maths test, and conducting a ten minute mock lesson. However HISD are hopeful that they will have recruited enough tutors by the time the program starts on the 16th of August.