Although the school has many programs that help other students like LINK Crew, the writing center, the math resource center, and Stu-Co, it has never had an official tutoring program until this year. Starting this year, Eaglecrest will have a student led tutoring program, where sophomores, seniors, and juniors will be able to help other students with their classes, particularly English and math. The new initiative will assist students in a more personal one-on-one program to receive aid with their schoolwork.

The new program pulls kids out of their Raptor 101, Student Leadership, or Raptor Academy classes for tutoring. Raptor Academy is a new class for incoming freshmen run by  Stephen Deschryver, David Schmidt, and Lindsay Witte. Katie Lloyd is in charge of the new class. Mr. Schmidt explained how Raptor Academy was designed “to help students stay on top of their grades and have every opportunity after high school”.

The class is made up of students selected to join for their freshman year, which includes half the freshman class. They make up a wide variety of students who are also in AP or Honors classes. Mr. Deschryver stated, “We target any specific need that the freshman may have so that we can help them with subjects like math, reading, latin, spanish, and AP Human Geography.”It prepares them as they become juniors and seniors to join the CTE program and military academies. Mr. Schmidt stated, “We want freshmen who show they’ll do well in the long term. We want to help them in their junior and senior years by having really good grades in their freshman year.” Raptor Academy

After the period starts tutors are given the student in Raptor Academy that they are assigned to help, and go over their quiz to see what they should help them with. Then they pull the freshmen out of class to go over the problems with them and assist them with any other questions they might have. Mr. Deschryver elaborated, “We are putting them with the right tutor to make sure that they are successful, and our peer tutors do a phenomenal job with our freshman because not only do they understand the content, but they are also role models or peers that the freshman can look up too.”

Although it is only the beginning of the year, the Raptor Academy freshman are already displaying great results in their tutored subjects. The tutors are ensuring that the freshman are doing their best to exceed in the subjects that they are struggling in. The teachers and tutors are creating an environment that is nurturing and teaching these young individuals. Mr. Schmidt stated, “Some of our students have gone in thinking I don’t like math, but they’re literally walking through the doors going I got my first 100% ever on a quiz. There’s instantaneous success.”

Students who are getting inadequate scores on their tests and quizzes will be pulled into the tutoring center from one of their academic classes, with an emphasis on English and math remediation. The math department of the tutoring program is run by Anne Anderson, Erin Dwyer, and Anna Swain. She said, “The math tutoring this year is only for Algebra students, and our target group is any students who earn a D or an F on their test or quiz. Students who still need help with math can still go to the math resource center. It’s still there; it’s still open; and it’s still staffed by teachers.”

Anderson saw the need for a math tutoring program after she noticed how students weren’t coming in for help when they had to last year. If they failed a test or quiz and had to come down to get help, they’d never come in.

Anderson stated, “For many years we’ve had the math resource center, where students could drop in and get help from teachers and in the past we’ve staffed it with peer tutors. All the kids who needed help didn’t go, so we needed to implement a plan that was during the day where students didn’t have the option to go, but were instead required to go.”

Although the new tutoring program will not be open to all students in Eaglecrest for it’s math center, it will be open to all and required for some in its English section. It will only apply to students who appear to need more help on their schoolwork for those who are required to come in.

The English tutoring program aims to help freshmen in their English classes and strengthening their English skills. Doug Cole, Keith Proctor, Paige Gilbert, and  Jennifer Murrin-Loomis are the teachers involved in the English section of the program. According to Mr. Cole the program is more than simply providing students with educational aid, the program is also meant to connect students. He said, “I’m most looking forward to seeing the positive impact that students will have on the success of other students. We have an incredible group of student tutors, and they are already making connections and giving back to their school. I’m excited to see this become an integral piece of Eaglecrest culture—students helping students succeed.” He also mentioned that the program’s goal was to ensure students, “especially  freshmen”, were provided with more support.

Paige Petrock, one of the English tutors stated, “I feel like the role of this tutoring center is to help students through their reading and writing. It could be analysis, thesis statements, topic sentences, understanding the author’s meaning, or developing arguments. It’s really limitless.”

The new program is not only a great way to help students in their academics, it also gives students the opportunity to help one another. It puts them in the role to help mentor and guide others in their education and contribute to the community.

Tsion Mammo stated, “Helping kids is realy impacting especially if I can guide them through the questions. I just want to give back. Kids fail their tests and they give up hope, but with this program we allow kids to learn and also retake tests for a better grade so they don’t lose the motivation.”

The tutoring program has provided the freshmen with an opportunity that many wish they could have had for themselves in the past. Since the tutoring program creates a personalized experience for the tutees, it ensures that they get the best help possible.

Petrock said, “I felt like if I had had an extra place to get extra help, I would have succeeded better in my classes, so joining the tutoring program gives me the opportunity to help freshmen who were in my situation.”

Tutors who themselves have had to get tutoring before also built a connection with walking in the shoes of the students who needed help.  Alivia Cambre stated, “When I was a freshman last year, I had to get math tutoring from the math resource center and it really helped me pass my mile markers. Now I’m getting the opportunity to help others succeed because I know their place and I know how it is to be stressed by parents.” Apart from simply impacting students who need help, the program is giving tutors like Cambre the opportunity to contribute to programs that have impacted them personally.