D-11 Tutors Must Pay Rental Fees

Private tutors hired by Colorado Springs School District 11 parents who want extra help at school for their students will have to pay rental fees and sign rental agreements.

Board members voted 4-2 Wednesday to stop work on a policy that would allow private tutors in schools without the fee and rental agreement.

Discussions about private tutors began last spring when several parents told the board that private tutors they hired to help were charged a rental fee but tutors in other schools were not.

Tutor Avivah Polmer said Friday that her rates will go up if she is charged rental fees, potentially deterring parents. A classroom rents for $12 an hour, according to the district Web site.

Polmer said she typically sees her clients for about an hour three times a week. That could mean $36 a week in rental fees on top of what parents already pay — $150 to $240 per week for sessions, depending on the tutor.

Private tutors want to work with districts and schools, Polmer said.

For two years, parent Carla Albers paid a private tutor to come into D-11 schools to help her daughter. No rental fee was charged.

Albers credits the tutor for turning her daughter’s academics around — from a struggling second-grader to a middleschooler in advanced classes.

The programs the district offered didn’t seem to help, Albers said. If private tutors aren’t allowed or are charged a fee that makes them more expensive, other students might not have a chance to see such a turnaround.

That’s why Albers got involved in advocating that private tutors be allowed in schools. She is now a candidate for the D-11 school board.

The district has a new program to help struggling students, several majority board members noted during the discussion about private tutors at Wednesday’s board meeting.

Board member David Linebaugh said he made the motion to stop work on the policy because the program will identify and help students who are behind regardless of whether they qualify for special education or other programs.

“In my mind, it’s dealt with,” Linebaugh said.

If the district feels that a private tutor is needed, board member Karen Teja said, officials can contract with a tutor.

Shakes said the decisions about whether private tutors are allowed in schools and rental fees must be based on what’s best for all students.

If parents want to help their students, the district should help the parents, said board member Willie Breazell, who opposed Linebaugh’s motion along with Craig Cox.

Cox said parents who worked on the policy will be furious, especially “when they see what an orchestrated charade this was.”

Cox alleged that Linebaugh’s motion was preplanned with the four majority board members and the superintendent.

Linebaugh said he spoke with one other board member before drafting his motion, which he typed out before the meeting. When motions are drafted “on the fly,” Linebaugh said, it can be hard for people to grasp on what the board is voting.

Albers said she would have liked to have seen Linebaugh’s motion before the meeting so parents might have been able to comment on it.

She said she also wants to know what specific programs the district will use to help students with learning disabilities.

The main reading intervention, said director of special education Bob Howell, is Linguistic Remedies, developed by Barbara Wise at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

There aren’t enough people trained to help all students who need help, Howell said. That’s the purpose of the new program — to get more people trained and working with students who need help.

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