Spotlight

The Eureka Springs School District is one of 50 school systems in the state that were recently awarded a grant that will help students who need extra instruction in English Language Arts and math.

A $162,000 grant allows the Eureka Springs district to partner with Bailey Instructional Group, which will provide high-impact tutoring sessions for students in all grades.

At its regular meeting on Monday, Feb. 12, the Eureka Springs School Board approved the project, which gets underway Friday, Feb. 16, according to superintendent Bryan Pruitt.

“I’m really excited about this high-impact tutoring,” Pruitt said.

The grant money awarded will go to Bailey Instructional Group, who will pay the tutors to come to all Eureka Springs campuses during the regular school day to provide the learning sessions. No more than four students will work with any tutor, Pruitt said.

“In the grant process we had to identify what our needs were,” Pruitt said. “We had around 108 students who needed additional instruction or tutoring. Three times a week, Bailey will be sending in these tutors that they’re hiring for an eight-week period.

“I think it’s a win-win for us because if they can help some of our kids who need tier two or tier three intervention tutoring and they perform better on the endof- course assessments, then it’s a win-win for our district and our teachers. We are really excited about the opportunity.”

Eureka Springs recently requested a waiver from the state to transition from a traditional 178-day schedule to an alternate schedule of 1,068 hours and added 15 minutes to each day the rest of the school year to help make up days that were lost because of winter weather. The extra 15 minutes will come in handy when it comes to the tutoring sessions, Pruitt said.

“It’s really helped out adding that additional 15 minutes,” he said. “It’s freed up some time where students will have availability to get this tutoring throughout the day. Extending the day 15 minutes has made it an excellent opportunity to incorporate this in.”

Tutors will spend the day going to each campus to conduct the tutoring sessions, Pruitt said.

“Each campus has been planning how they’ll use these tutors,” he said.

Also at the Feb. 12 meeting, the board voted to request a waiver from the state that will allow the district to start next school year before Aug. 19.

“The department of education set a date saying you can’t start before Aug. 19,” Pruitt said. “That really cramps us in getting the semester in before Christmas. So, we had to submit a waiver request.”