14th July 2010 9:00
By Blue Tutors
A Tutoring scheme in Dallas has recently reported that it offers after school tutoring to over 1,000 students. In an article on The Dallas Morning News website, it explains how ‘Bea’s Kids’ started as a very small tuition program, and has grown dramatically into a valuable tutoring resource for many of those in the Hispanic Dallas community.
Beatrice Salazar is the founder of the non-profit organisation, and explained how it all began when she found a young boy searching for food in some rubbish bins. Beatrice took him into her kitchen, made him a sandwich, and from here the tutoring scheme began. The boy returned the following day, and Beatrice began to tutor him. Before long he was bringing his friends, and Beatrice was helping many kids who would have previously had little chance of getting anywhere academically.
Bea’s kids has just celebrated it’s 20th anniversary, and although mainly an after-school program they also offer one-to-one tutoring, and some of it’s volunteers also visit the students’ to engage in home tuition. One of major difficulties for the students is their English ability, because many of the parents do not have English as their first language. Bea’s kids provide free English tutors, and give students a chance in an area where the dropout rate for Hispanic kids is well above average.