Volunteers to give junior high students a leg up in after school algebra

The Healdsburg Unified School District is teaming with two
agencies this December to launch a brand new algebra tutoring
program designed to prepare junior high kids for algebra.
The Sonoma County Office of Education selected Healdsburg Junior
High to receive grant monies to pay for the Aiming High algebra
tutoring program this winter and the Volunteer Center of Sonoma
County is assembling a group of volunteers to help run it. Those
interested in joining that team are asked to contact Barbara Fisher
at 573-3399 ext. 122.
District officials believe that early support will help students
succeed in algebra and beyond. “We know that algebra is one of the
indicators of whether kids will be college ready,” said district
instructional director Annie Millar. “Our goal is to get more and
more of our kids ready for algebra by the 8th grade. Aiming High
helps support this goal.”
The school is reaching out to the families of 15 students to
begin the twice a week after-school program. These students will
stay late on Mondays and Thursdays, working in small groups with
volunteers supervised by one of the junior high’s math teachers.
These study sessions are designed to give students support and
mentorship.
“We will be taking students who have the potential to be
successful and might have some gaps in their mathematical skills
and trying to give them some assistance, and at the same time give
them a mentor to encourage them to pursue their academics,” said
school math teacher Pat Sabo.
The Volunteer Center is in the midst of finding those mentors.
Fisher said applicants are fingerprinted for a background check and
tested for tuberculosis, all free of charge. “We need probably five
more,” she said. “We’d like the volunteers to commit to the end of
the school year, which is in May.”
Sabo said the teaching staff appreciates the Center’s support in
finding good volunteers. “It frees us up to actually work with the
volunteers,” she said. “We’re not doing the ground work of going
out and finding the volunteers for the program. We’re being
acknowledged as the people who know what’s going on in the
classroom.”
With the volunteers taken care of, Sabo said teachers are
focusing on what the students should be learning with the tutors.
“All research has shown that the greatest need for prepping
students for algebra is fractions,” she said.
The staff is also looking over student lists to identify which
15 should be invited to the program. “We’re pretty excited about
it,” she said.
School principal Deborah Hall said the entire math department is
behind the effort. “It’s going to be a great program,” she said.
“We have kids who really need that extra boost before they get into
high school.”
The algebra program is in its fourth year in the county,
according to Sonoma County Office of Education director of
mathematics Doreen Heath Lance. The program has been used
successfully at Casa Grande, Petaluma and Rancho Cotate high
schools, but Lance said Healdsburg Unified wanted to provide the
tutoring earlier for its students.