School budgets are often uncertain, leaving leaders waiting until mid-year to secure funding for the high-impact tutoring programs they want to start. It’s not too late to start in the middle of the year, but it’s important for districts and schools to consider the advantages and the challenges of launching mid-year.
Before launching a mid-year pilot, district and school leaders should evaluate their tutoring provider to make sure they have strong evidence backing their approach, that they provide tutors with excellent training, and they use high-quality instructional materials. For a mid-year launch, schools should aim to finalize agreements by December and plan for an early February start.
An advantage of starting a high-impact tutoring pilot program in the middle of the year is that it allows district and school leaders to test out your scheduling, hiring structure, the buy-in from staff, and alignment to teachers and curriculum.
Find the right leader to drive high-impact tutoring
Individual school leaders play a vital role in the success of a tutoring pilot. You want to find principals and other school leaders who are influential among their peers and also genuinely willing to offer honest feedback about the program.
If you do this, they can be valuable allies in promoting the program and recruiting other school leaders while also getting the real feedback you need about the successes and challenges they’ve experienced for the upcoming year.
Carefully select schools and students
The best place to start a tutoring program is where it can be the least disruptive to the current school schedule. If the school already has students grouped in intervention periods or doing some sort of pullout as part of their schedule, those could be potential places where tutoring could fit in.
At some schools, students switch electives in the middle of the year, and this can be a good opportunity to direct students into tutoring as an elective. Schools without intervention periods could still consider embedding tutors in classrooms alongside teachers.
Strategic student selection is another key aspect of running an effective mid-year tutoring pilot. Select students who are just below the readiness cusp—in the third quintile—and see if tutors can move them up in one semester above their current level.
Innovative approaches, flexibility and funding
A mid-year pilot can also serve as a way to engage potential funding partners. A district might pursue seed funding from a community foundation to demonstrate the effectiveness of tutoring, especially since some foundations are mainly interested in funding a pilot versus a full program.
Beyond external funding, a pilot can be a valuable tool for internal program design and readiness. Schools can also consider implementing their own tutoring pilot to identify their needs and understand their readiness for investing in a full program.
We’ve worked with school partners who took this step and used the pilot to help design their request for proposals.
Districts not yet ready for a mid-year pilot could run scenarios to integrate tutoring into their existing systems. Since scheduling is often a challenge, teams should explore scenarios for fitting tutoring into their ecosystem. This type of planning is key when discussing options with potential providers.
Expectations and outcomes
Some schools may want to explore outcomes-based contracts for tutoring programs, which offer a way to ensure clear, shared metrics and outcomes with partners. However, it’s critical to remember that launching a mid-year pilot will deliver half the dosage.
We recommend that districts reserve outcomes-based contracts for the full-scale fall rollout. If districts pursue an outcomes-based contract for a mid-year start, the outcomes must be relative to the actual amount of tutoring students will receive.
Fostering teacher and student buy-in
Finally, student and teacher buy-in are key challenges to overcome in a mid-year tutoring pilot. Students have already established a routine, so tutors may have more relationship-building to do.
Offering participation incentives can help with student buy-in. Teachers also may be more apprehensive because tutoring is being introduced mid-year, so it’s critical to clearly communicate the “why” behind tutoring and what the district will learn from it.
Ultimately, a mid-year tutoring pilot’s true power is it provides a lower-stakes opportunity to gather real feedback and make critical program adjustments. This learning experience can be key to securing funder interest and ensuring a successful, full-scale launch in the fall.
