What makes Benton Heights Outstanding?
Benton Heights Academy of the Arts earned the distinction of UCPS TutorMate School of the Year
because of excellent fidelity in all six TutorMate classrooms. This school had tutoring in only two
classrooms in 2017-18 and they very much wanted to have tutors for all classrooms. They were thrilled
that that worked out this year, as we were able to secure Bank of America tutors for all six classrooms.
Teachers did an excellent job of introducing the program to their students, modeling how to answer
calls by projecting the TutorMate screen so all students could see it. All students knew how to answer
the phone, so calls almost never went unanswered. Teachers did an excellent job of communicating
schedule changes and absences and, therefore, tutors were confident that they would reach their
students at their scheduled times.
Further, teachers were quick to communicate when a student moved or when a new student, who
would really profit from tutoring, arrived. Because teachers supported the program as well as they did, and because of all of the other excellent work they and their students do, first graders at BHESA had excellent growth in reading this year!
