Sarasota County Schools Looking for Tutors

Despite a group of active, dedicated volunteers working throughout the Sarasota County school district, the need remains great for more tutors to help at-risk and struggling students succeed, a school district news release said.

“Too often people hesitate to volunteer in schools because they report they ‘have no skills’ or ‘don’t know how to teach,’ said PALS (Partners in Education) specialist and district volunteer coordinator Tanice Knopp in the release. “We’d like more people to know that we provide various training opportunities that are specifically designed to help volunteers feel more comfortable and better prepared to help students improve their skills and achieve more academically.”

The district said PALS has provided reading tutor training to volunteers in elementary schools for more than 15 years. Volunteers are trained in programs specifically designed by curriculum specialists for volunteers to work one-on-one for 30 minutes with students in kindergarten through third grade.

PALS now offers additional training modules to help volunteers feel better prepared to work with students from poverty and to arm them with research-based strategies to use in helping students improve mastery of skills.

In addition to elementary reading tutors, PALS also seeks volunteers to tutor in a middle school reading tutor program and in a math skills-mastery program. Like the reading tutor program, the math program involves working one-on-one with a student for about 30 minutes, the release said.

At Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, which has one of the largest tutor programs in the school district, Barbara Grauer has volunteered for more than seven years following her retirement.

Grauer calls volunteering “a delightful pastime. I know I’m not the first to say this, but you really do get more than you give,” she said in the news release. “For many of these students, we are their only connection with reading. It opens up the world to them.

“I’ve never seen a student go downhill. They’re always better off at the end of the year than when they started. It gives us a great feeling to watch that happen and to be part of it.”

Community members who are interested in registering for PALS Partners in Education volunteer training or learning more about the training sessions and volunteer opportunities in schools can visit www.SarasotaCountySchools.net/departments/PALS, email PALSoffice@sarasota.k12.fl.us or call 941-927-9000, ext. 31500.