Chad Reay thought for a moment about all the ways the Black Death spread from Asia to Europe.

After tutor Jackie Hill asked him to reread a classroom handout, the Frontier Middle School seventh-grader realized his paper needed to mention people fleeing to nearby cities.

The one-on-one attention and extra help Reay gets from Hill means he is making sure his days of getting poor grades are history.

The Natrona County School District's new tutoring program is helping students like Reay stay on track, said Shawna Trujillo, at-risk drop-out manager for the district.

Although the district piloted the tutor program last spring, it officially started this school year. The program grew from 12 tutors last year in the junior high and high schools to 70 this year throughout the district, Trujillo said.

The tutors, who are certified teachers, cost the district $3.5 million of $24 million in additional state revenue from the new school funding model. The program is one of several new efforts that came from a Legislative look at how to improve education with current reseach and proven practices.

The tutors have helped Reay go from a D student last year to a proficient and advance proficient student this year, which equates to As and Bs.

Building on skills

As Hill and Reay worked together during a 30-minute session Thursday afternoon, the pair built upon his writing, spelling and reading comprehension skills.

Hill helped Reay, but made sure he was thinking critically and figuring out the writing assignment. The objective of the session was for Reay to come up with an introduction, three main points and a conclusion.

Hill, who tutors students in language arts, broke down each section for Reay, who came up with his own talking points for his paper.

After Reay finished explaining how the disease spread, the two went on to another main point for his paper.

"What does it look like?" Hill asked Reay.

The seventh grader was quick to respond to that question, detailing what the swollen lymph nodes, or buboes, looked like, in gory detail.

Hill encouraged him to continue as she wrote his words down.

Although she occasionally took notes, Reay is the one who will be doing the work using the rough outline from his tutoring session. He will write several paragraphs from the notes he and Hill took to complete a finished product for his geography teacher, Carl Myers.

Reay said he enjoys meeting with Hill twice a week to work on his studies. He said the sessions enable him to keep up with his schoolwork if he's been out of town, and give him the chance to understand a topic better.

"I love going to tutoring because it helps me get my work done," Reay said. "It also helps me improve my writing. It's helped me a lot."

Reay admitted he's not good at spelling, but Hill said he has an excellent vocabulary.

Drop-out prevention

The district's tutoring program, which focuses on math and reading, is one of several ways the district is trying to keep students engaged in school, Trujillo said.

"This is a drop-out prevent program," she said. "Tutoring is an intervention. We think it's our best intervention. In many cases these students feel connected to the tutors."

The bond helps children feel more at ease when learning.

"Sometimes they don't want people to know what their skills are," Trujillo said. "If it's on a one-on-one basis, they feel safe to explore."

The hours the tutors work often vary during the day. Some work with their students before school starts while others work with them after school. Some students are taken out of their classes during the day. Hill, however, said they never let the students fall behind in their regular classes when they are taken out. Typically, the students are taken out for a portion of their regular classes or during an elective class.

"Our primary goal is to teach them strategies so they can be better students," Hill said.

Reacher reporter Aimee Tabor at (307) 266-0593 or aimee.tabor@casperstartribune.net.