Overview: What is a Focus Area?
Your program’s Focus Area is the content area and/or grade level that you will prioritize for tutoring. Identifying a Focus Area is the first step in planning a tutoring program, and it requires answering these essential questions:
- WHO would benefit most from the individualized instruction of tutoring, and WHY?
- WHAT programs and initiatives already exist within your district to address these needs?
What Focus Areas have other High-Impact Tutoring programs chosen and why?
To help you envision your goal, peruse this list of Focus Areas from various school districts across the country.
Example Focus Areas |
|
| Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Illinois | Grade 9: all students in algebra in selected schools |
| Capitalizing on existing priorities: Chicago Public Schools (CPS) capitalized on existing priorities to keep students on track for graduation. Research revealed that failure of even a single core class could lead students off-track. Because a significant number of incoming 9th graders struggled with Algebra (a core class), CPS saw Algebra as an immediate priority area for tutoring. CPS’s tutoring initiative was one pillar of a comprehensive set of supports that the district initiated to ensure all students were on track to graduation. | |
| Spring Independent School District, Texas | Grades 2-8: students with multiple-year skill deficits in ELA or math |
| Consistent underperformance: Spring ISD offered daily tutoring to support a consistently underperforming group of students: those with multiple-year skill deficits in ELA or math. The tutoring supplements interventions provided by teachers. | |
| Guilford County, North Carolina | Grades 6-9: most vulnerable populations (e.g,. Incarcerated Youth) in math |
| District Strategy: Knowing that success in secondary math is associated with improved health and financial outcomes for students, Guilford’s strategic plan focused on tutoring targeted at helping students pass this course by the end of their 9th grade year. | |
| Lenoir City Schools, Tennessee: Pilot 1 | Grade 10: all students in geometry |
| Response to immediate needs: NWEA’s early learning data showed that during COVID-19 school building closures students lost more ground in math than in literacy, making math a logical priority for tutoring. Furthermore, district leaders recognized that 10th graders missed a significant amount of Geometry class during Spring 2020 due to COVID-19. Lenoir City piloted tutoring in Geometry to fill these gaps. | |
| Lenoir City Schools, Tennessee: Pilot 2 | Grade 9: all students |
| Focusing on Transitional Period: After learning from their first pilot program, the Lenoir City district decided to expand tutoring to address gaps 8th graders may have when transitioning into high school. They paired incoming 9th graders with older high school students to provide academic and social-emotional peer support. | |
How do you identify a Focus Area?
To identify your focus area, you need a robust assessment of your students’ needs as well as an understanding of what effective programs already exist. Consider conducting a District Landscape Analysis[1] to provide a broad understanding across stakeholders of your students’ needs. A good District Landscape Analysis collects qualitative data, relying on empathy and open-ended questions to explore stakeholder (students, teachers, administrations, caregivers, etc.) experiences, and combines this qualitative knowledge with quantitative data. Another tool to consider is Empathy Mapping to guide the identification of key insights to inform your focus area choice.
Once you have conducted your District Landscape Analysis, discuss the following guiding questions to help you identify where it makes the most sense to focus your new initiative:
- Who would benefit most from individualized instruction via tutoring and why?
- Local Laws. Do state or local laws require your district to prioritize specific groups when allocating support?
- Vulnerable Populations. What groups have been disenfranchised by the education system in your district (e.g., disproportionate discipline or SPED identification)? Are there any grades with a decrease in attendance?
- Student Achievement. What groups consistently underperform compared to others? In what areas have your district’s students had the biggest gaps in learning due to COVID-19? (NWEA data from November 2020 shows bigger gaps in math than ELA nationwide). What groups lack access to individualized instruction tailored to their needs?
- What programs and initiatives already exist within the district to address these needs?
- What priorities already exist within your district, and why? For instance, if your district has prioritized math in the district strategy, math may be a logical focus area given that a need has already been identified. Building upon existing efforts is likely to result in sustained and effective tutoring programs.
- Is your district addressing this need in another way? If an existing district initiative has demonstrated success meeting a particular need, consider focusing on a different area that has received less attention.
- Is there an opportunity to complement existing effective initiatives? Embed tutoring into existing effective initiatives to create cohesive learning trajectories. For example, the LAUSD’s Primary Promise literacy program serves students in K-2nd grade, so the district created a new tutoring program called Step Up Tutoring to build on that foundation and support 3rd-6th grade students.
- Is there an opportunity to improve existing initiatives? Read more in the next section on aligning tutoring with existing priorities for guidance on how to evaluate already existing initiatives that overlap with tutoring.