The College Park City Council discussed funding a new literacy program at Hollywood Elementary School during Tuesday’s meeting.

The city’s education advisory committee recommended the council pay $40,000 to implement the Amplify Tutoring-led reading program for the 2024-25 school year and improve College Park students’ education quality.

Amplify Tutoring, a company based on Stanford University research, aims to provide tutoring that uses high-quality instruction, is data driven and promotes positive relationships between students and tutors, Lindsay Sullivan, the company’s associate vice president, said at Tuesday’s meeting.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools had students virtually join the program during their literacy blocks, which is how Hollywood Elementary School initially involved students in Amplify Tutoring at the end of last year, Sullivan told The Diamondback.

According to Sullivan, the program partnered closely with Prince George’s County Public Schools last year to identify schools in need of tutoring. City documents said Hollywood Elementary School was chosen for literacy support because 70 percent of the school’s students live in College Park.

“The Amplify program is highly regarded within the county through the reading department,” Anna Doebereiner, the instructional lead teacher in Hollywood Elementary School’s reading department, said at the meeting Tuesday. “We wanted, at Hollywood, to act quickly to ensure that our students would continue to receive tutoring.”

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According to Amplify’s website, students in the program receive at least three 30-minute tutoring sessions each week, but Sullivan said the schedule is tailored to each school based on the principal’s input and the students’ needs.

Programs like Amplify Tutoring help teachers in addition to students, Sullivan told The Diamondback, because teachers aren’t able to spend days modifying their lessons to each student. She said tutoring programs give teachers the support to “extend their reach” by allowing them to collaborate with tutors and divide students into small groups.

“Teachers have the hardest job in America,” Sullivan told The Diamondback. “It is critical that we support teachers, that we extend the reach of teachers.”

Implementing this program at Hollywood Elementary School would be critical for the 230 students who are in the English as a second language demographic out of about 300 total students at the school, Carlos Johnson, the school’s principal, said at Tuesday’s meeting.

Since 2022, Hollywood Elementary School had been working with The Literacy Lab, another tutoring program. This collaboration, which the City of College Park funded, was discontinued earlier this year when The Literacy Lab ended its contract with AmeriCorps tutors, according to city documents.

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The documents also said The Literacy Lab served 30 students in the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years and 18 students in the 2024 fiscal year, all of whom showed a marked increase in literacy skills by the end of the program.

When The Literacy Lab discontinued its contract, students involved were left with an incomplete education, Johnson said.

“We didn’t want to see the funding go away, and we did not have something for our, really, most robust multi-learners,” Johnson said at the meeting Tuesday.

If the city funds the partnership with Amplify Tutoring, the students left with incomplete studies will continue with their tutoring, along with nine new students in the first semester, Johnson said.

District 4 council member Maria Mackie said it’s especially important for fifth graders to participate in this program so they can be confident in their reading skills as they prepare for middle school.

“I’m really hopeful that we can [provide funding],” Mackie said. “When children can read, they can succeed.”

Throughout their discussion, council members vocalized their support for funding the program. They will vote on the funding in a future meeting.