School districts across the nation that seek to improve student outcomes and address unfinished learning are turning to high-dosage tutoring (HDT) programs. HDT generally consists of personalized instruction in small group settings, with at least three 30-minute interactions a week. The unique settings of the school districts and the diverse needs of their communities and schools have inspired creative methods of implementing those programs. Fulton County Schools (FCS) in Atlanta, GA is one such school district that is using the expertise of tutoring vendors to implement high-dosage tutoring.

While school districts like Chicago Public Schools have opted to hire tutors in-house, FCS adopted a different strategy, contracting with a range of companies to hire and train tutors to deliver high-quality instruction.

The Personalized Learning Initiative (PLI), a study that is measuring the effectiveness of different types of tutoring, is helping FCS implement a high-dosage tutoring program. Hannah Zey, a continuous improvement analyst at FCS, plays a pivotal role in supporting the PLI research study and tutoring at the study schools. MDRC spoke with Hannah about the school district’s role in maintaining vendor relationships and her valuable insights and advice for other school districts that are considering developing similar programs.

Something of note about the tutoring program in FCS is that tutors are being hired and trained by contracted vendors. I would love to hear more about the school district’s process in procuring vendors and building those partnerships.

When tutoring started after the [COVID-19] pandemic, we went through the proposal process to procure vendors. Our vendors had to be able to meet certain criteria to provide the tutoring services, and if they could meet all the criteria within the proposal request—[supplying tutors who had] a high school diploma, providing background checks, agreeing to provide materials for tutoring, agreeing to use materials that aligned with FCS guidelines and standards—then they passed through the process. Schools then get to select the vendor they want to use (from the list of approved vendors) that they believe fits best with the needs of their specific school context.

Do you have any advice for school districts that may want to go this route (using contracted vendors) when thinking about standing up their own tutoring program?

Budget considerations, for sure. There are pros and cons to using a vendor service—utilizing outside vendors is going to be more expensive [than hiring tutors in the school district], but with that expense, you do not have to manage the hiring or the maintaining of the tutors. Be mindful of your budgets when you are looking for your vendors. And when you are in the negotiation process, be extremely explicit about the qualifications and expectations of the tutors when they are in your schools, and the expectations of service. What will they need to do when they are at work? Is the district paying for planning time? Breaks? All these things must be clear and discussed up front when choosing a vendor.

We’ve just talked about the school district’s role in setting up the tutoring program, but we know a lot of details need to be worked out at the individual schools where the tutoring takes place. Who at the school level is responsible for working with the vendors and implementing the program in ways that work for their individual schools? What are their roles and responsibilities?

At each school, there needs to be a specific person [who is] charged with the job of overseeing the tutoring program. This can be challenging, because at the school level each person already wears so many hats. So you want to be intentional about whom you assign this task to and how many other hats this person is already being asked to wear. You also want to consider whether the school coordinator is connected to the content area in which tutoring is happening and if they can manage this along with all their other responsibilities. We have seen success with coordinators who are extremely organized and have a connection to the inner workings of the school. It is important that they understand the scheduling needs of the entire school so that when the schedules inevitably change—due to things like testing—they can understand how the changes will impact tutoring and adjust accordingly to ensure students are still receiving the services. There is also a people management piece to the role. There is managing the vendor and the teachers, collaborating with the tutors, and acting as a bridge between tutoring and the school administration. The school coordinator really needs to be a people person who can navigate all the adult personalities. Sometimes the best teachers are not the best people to take that on!

We have seen several different types of employees be successful in this role. In some schools, the coordinator is an instructional coach in the area where tutoring is taking place. In elementary schools, we have often seen the curriculum support teacher [CST] take on this role. This is someone who supports the instruction of all the teachers in the building. Therefore, we have seen that they are a good fit for the tutoring coordinator role because they already have their hand in all the scheduling and the inner workings of the building. While the CST is already wearing so many hats, they also have a [finger on the] pulse of everything that is happening in the building and that makes them a good choice—though they are very, very busy. Administrators like assistant principals more often get pulled away from the tutoring work for their other administrative duties.

We’ve talked a lot about getting programs up and running. Let’s shift, now, to a conversation about how you monitor the tutoring program to make sure it’s being implemented as designed and that students are experiencing success. We know data are critical to monitoring. Can you talk about how you use data to monitor and manage the program?

Data-informed decision-making is how we do our work in Fulton County. There are two main data pieces that drive our tutoring practices. One is attendance collection for students receiving tutoring, and the other is progress monitoring of academic growth. In terms of attendance tracking, we have a district tool that our tutors use that lets us know if a student was present, and for how many sessions and how many minutes. Each time a student comes to a tutoring session, it is the expectation that the tutors log attendance, and that information runs directly into our district-wide system, Infinite Campus. When used properly by the tutors, the attendance tool gives us data every two weeks to show attendance over time. This helps us ground our conversations with schools—we can give feedback based on data to administrators regarding tutoring in their school.

The other type of data that we are collecting is students’ academic progress. We are doing that by comparing beginning-, middle-, and end-of-year standards mastery using adaptive diagnostic tests (NWEA, MAP, and iReady) that give a scaled score and national percentile ranking. We also collect our state assessment data at the end of the year, when we are looking at our students’ standards mastery. Personally, I find it helpful to see our students’ progress and growth throughout the year. The state assessment looks at summative mastery as opposed to the individual growth that happens throughout the year.

We are nearing the end here, so I have one more question and it is very open-ended. I’m wondering if you have any lessons learned or advice for school districts that may be looking to start a tutoring program of their own.

Think big but start small. It is okay to try something different, and don’t be afraid to shift gears if something isn’t working. We have made so many adjustments based on schedules; we know schools are lively and ever-changing places and so we have had to be willing and able to adjust. Be able to adjust to the needs of the schools and really listen to what they need at that time. This has allowed us to come up with solutions to their problems and recognize that what works in one place may not work in another place. That ability and willingness to be flexible has made all the difference.