LAUSD To Offer Free One-On-One Tutoring To Students This Fall

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Despite having to continue virtual learning when the fall semester begins next week, students in the Los Angeles Unified School District will have access to free one-on-one tutoring, officials announced Monday.

The district reported that K-8 students will have access to both in-person and online one-on-one tutoring thanks to a partnership with the group Step Up Tutoring.

The free program will begin with 500 students from the Huntington Park, Fremont and Taft neighborhoods and then potentially expand from there. Teachers will help identify students for the program.

It's unclear exactly how in-person tutoring will work.

"We've learned a good deal about online education since March and it's clear there is a need for more one-on-one support for students," LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner said Monday. "The individual attention a teacher can provide to a student in a classroom at school is not easily replicated in a Zoom class with 20 or 30 students."

The tutors are volunteers from across the U.S. who will provide "supplemental, individualized assistance outside of the regular school day," LAUSD said in a news release.

Earlier this month, LAUSD and its teachers reached a tentative deal on the protocols for proceeding with distance learning when the 2020-21 school year starts the week of Aug. 17.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced July 17 that public and private schools in all California counties on the state's coronavirus monitoring list – which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura – will start the fall semester with distance learning only due to the surge in coronavirus cases.

For more information on the program, click here.