UC Tutoring Program scales up. More tutors, more subjects, more students.

Kyle Dane, Managing Editor|March 31, 2023

Kyle Dane

UC tutor, Avery Ryan, works with students during their fifth bell AIRS time.

The UC Tutoring Program for math, which began in 2017, expanded its services to reach more students because of a grant from the Ohio Department of Education. The program, which provides one-on-one tutoring for students struggling with math, added more tutors, allowing it to serve a larger number of students.

Casey Hord, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati who specializes in mathematical interventions for students with learning disabilities or mild intellectual disabilities worked with Clayton Hoyng, a math teacher, to bring UC tutors to Kings. Hoyng worked in the UC Tutoring Program when he was a student at UC.  

Hoyng tutored with Hord during his first year as a professor at UC. To test the waters they decided to bring only three to four tutors to the school at a time.  When Hoyng was a college student, he and Hord walked to Hughes High School one or two days a week to work with certain kids during specific bells. “We started on a real small scale,” Hoyng said.

In 2022 UC got an Ohio Department of Education grant which gave them the ability to pay more tutors and build up the program. 

“Recently, the federal government started spending more money on tutoring and they gave money to the states and then we got the Ohio Department of Education grant and that allowed us to scale up and do more tutoring at kings,” Hord said.

‘Scaling up’ for this program meant getting more tutors and reaching more kids who are struggling in math. This year Hoyng reached out to other math teachers and asked for recommendations about students who struggle, and then started writing passes for those students to go down during their study hall.

“Now they are set up and come Monday, Wednesday and Friday and they’re here from about second bell through sixth bell and have options to stay if need be,” Hoyng said.

UC’s tutoring grant requires that the program reach a specific size of both tutors and students. The program has faced some difficulties trying to scale up. Hoyng has found that kids have been hesitant to go down and get tutored which has required the program to branch out to other schools to reach the audience it needs.

“They’ve actually expanded to some of the elementary buildings here at Kings so they’ve got some tutors here every day at each elementary building and at Columbia,” Hoyng said.

Since the program has expanded, students who find themselves struggling in math have been able to go down to the Learning Commons and find a tutor to help them during study hall or AIRS time.

“I’ve been going down to see the UC tutors for about four or five weeks. I started [struggling in math] in February after my math teacher had an injury so he couldn’t come in. Then there was an email that went out about the UC tutors and I asked Mrs. Brant and Mrs. Elam about it and they said they could set me up,” said Sophomore Lilliana Medina. 

Medina told the Knight Times that the tutoring program is not an intimidating place to learn. 

“[The program] has honestly helped me so much because when I go to math class I’m so lost, but when I go see the UC tutors, it’s like everything is so much easier because they explain things to me in the same ways that Mr. Bower could, which is the way I learn, and I think it’s really convenient too because I go during my AIRS time on Mondays and Fridays,” Medina said.