Spencer updates club on tutoring program progress

To say that the past year has been a whirlwind for Audry Spencer may be an understatement.

“I’ve received a lot of blessings lately,” she said at Tuesday’s meeting of the Rotary Club of Crowley.

Spencer, along with several of the faculty members of the Empowering the Community for Excellence Tutoring Program, were on hand to update the Rotary Club of the program’s progress in the past year.

As outlined to the state, the tutoring program’s goals are to promote a positive attitude about education, an improved self-image and to get students excited about learning as well as improve participating students’ scores in language arts and math.

Based on the final progress report, it appears the program is already off to a great start.

In the first year, a total of 62 students participated. The program had access to 54 of those students’ fall and spring scores for advancement evaluation. The results were as follows:

• Social skills: 100 percent of students utilized the Leader In Me Program to be successful in school.

• Language arts: 30 percent of students advanced one level, 7 percent advanced two levels, 39 percent made sufficient growth to maintain a level of needing only strategic support, and 24 percent remained well below benchmark and will likely need intensive support.

• Mathematics (Mathematics Computation): 23 percent of students advanced one level under, 8 percent advanced two levels and 40 percent maintained a level of strategic or benchmark

• Mathematics (M-CAMP): 45 percent of students advanced one level, 7 percent advanced two levels and 36 percent maintained a level of strategic or benchmark.

Spencer explained to the club that the students involved in the program are given the opportunity to work in a small group or individually with certified teachers. The program also provides families that cannot afford private tutoring the chance to help their child succeed in school.

Short term, the goals are simple, help students raise their scores in school by enforcing what they are learning in school. Long term, however, Spencer hopes this will lead to more Crowley students graduating from high school. 

The program began, in essence, in 2012, with Spencer’s idea of a mobile tutoring facility. That dream morphed into its current incarnation, a tutoring facility which is currently headquartered in a small house that has been redone to suit the needs of the facility.

The plans, however, continue to grow and the program is looking to eventually re-locate to the corner of Avenue E and Hutchinson Avenue in a building donated to the non-profit. And Spencer is just as gracious as ever.

“We’ve been blessed by a new building,” she said. “I keep calling it my blessing.

Spencer relayed that her philosophy in life continues to be proven by this program as well.

“Good things come to those who wait, better things come to those who believe, but the best things come to those who believe in God and never give up,” she said. “I will never give up.”

For that new building, work continues in the interior as many items are still needed to make the dream a full reality. Volunteers are needed, particularly a carpenter and plumber. 

For more information on the program or to donate, contact Spencer.