LAURINBURG — Scotland County Schools is working on a partnership to help with tutoring for students.

During this week’s Committee of the Whole planning meeting, the Scotland County Board of Education heard from Superintendent Takeda LeGrand about the program which she hopes to begin in the fall.

“Scotland County Schools entered into a partnership with NC Education Corps to make sure that we work with bringing high-quality tutoring to Scotland County,” LeGrand said. “High-quality tutoring is actually a national model for making sure that we focus on great strategies to move students forward in literacy.”

The partnership won’t cost anything for the school system to use but will work with kindergarten to third-grade literacy tutors with the science of reading. Along with the literacy tutors the program allows for access to training materials from grades four to 12.

“They’re only focusing on K-3, but they do have a national model for high-dosage tutoring,” LeGrand said. “To me, coupling this with us already being a part of a science of reading pallet that will take place this summer, I think this will be a value add to the work we’re going to doing in literacy in our early grades.”

The national model includes 30 minutes of tutoring three times a week, a relationship assignment and one to three students per session, 30 hours of pre-training and 30 hours of post-training with support from a coordinator and attending professional development days and professional learning communities in Scotland County Schools to align their efforts with that of the district.

“With this new partnership, we’ll be working with current partners in Scotland County,” LeGrand said, “such as Richmond Community College, The University of North Carolina at Pembroke and our very own St. Andrews University to work with recruiting teachers as well as tutors to come into our schools and come into our buildings to make sure our students are reading on grade-level and succeeding at a high level.”

The tutors can be anyone from retired educators to college students, according to LeGrand, and will be compensated for their time spent in the school system.

“We do have a price point for non-licensed teachers or team members who are tutors at $15 an hour,” LeGrand said. “And we’re doing $25 an hour for staff that is licensed or a retired teacher. That’s to make sure we stay aligned with the other participating districts because they don’t want to compete with pricing so we’re staying in that range.”

Katelin Gandee can be reached at kgandee@laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com.