Consistent & frequent
StandardTutors meet with students at least 3 times per week for a minimum 10-week cycle.
Three or more sessions every week on a fixed schedule your school sets, for 10–12 week cycles that follow the NYCPS calendar.
High-impact tutoring · NYC public schools
High-impact tutoring that helps NYC public school students reach mastery.
Live, small-group sessions in literacy and math, three or more times a week, delivered online or hybrid in partnership with your school. Every cycle also teaches students how learning works, so what they gain in tutoring carries into class.
- Built to the NYC Public Schools HIT standards
- Applying to the ExpandED Tutor Provider Directory
- Live and synchronous, never self-paced
- NYCPS-cleared tutors · Ed Law 2-d data protection
Built to the standard
Designed around the six NYC high-impact tutoring standards.
NYC Public Schools and ExpandED Schools define high-impact tutoring by six standards. Our program was built to meet each one from the start, so your HIT team can see exactly how we meet them.
Low ratio
StandardA trained tutor works with a small group of 1-to-4 or less.
One tutor to no more than four students, and often fewer. Groups are formed by skill need, using your school’s own assessment data.
Dosage
StandardEach session is at least 30 minutes, with a minimum of 90 minutes per week.
Sessions of 30–45 minutes, at least 90 minutes per student per week. We track minutes actually delivered, not minutes scheduled, and report them.
Relationship-based
StandardA trained and consistent tutor builds a strong, trusting relationship with students for the whole cycle.
Each group keeps the same tutor from the first session to the last. Cameras on, names known, and every absence followed up.
Data-driven
StandardPrograms use data to inform enrollment, content, and continuous improvement.
Baseline diagnostic, an exit ticket every session, a progress report every two weeks, and an end-of-cycle report against the measures your school uses.
High-quality curriculum
StandardStandards-based materials tailored to student needs and aligned to the school’s curriculum and goals.
Standards-based materials aligned to your core curriculum (including NYC Reads and NYC Solves materials where your school uses them), with the vocabulary and models students see in class.
Programs
Literacy and math, plus how to learn.
Two core tutoring programs and one short, high-leverage add-on. All are supplemental support for students already enrolled in NYC public schools, typically students just below grade level (MTSS Tier II).
Literacy HIT
Reading comprehension, fluency, academic vocabulary, and writing about text, matched to the units students are reading in class. Includes targeted support for older readers with foundational-skill gaps.
Literacy program →Math HIT
Number sense, fractions, ratios and proportional reasoning, expressions and equations, and Algebra I readiness: the middle-grades content where gaps compound fastest.
Math program →Mental Arts
Explicit instruction in how learning works: retrieval practice, spaced review, note-making, and deliberate practice. It is practiced on the literacy or math content itself, so it never takes time away from either.
Mental Arts →Supplemental, not a substitute. We do not enroll students, run a school day, or replace classroom instruction, IEP-mandated services, or interventions delivered by certified teachers. We add consistent, high-dosage practice alongside them.
How a partnership works
Your school owns the design. We run the tutoring.
The citywide initiative found that tutoring works best when schools make the key decisions. We plan each cycle with your HIT team and handle the work of delivering it.
Identify
Your team selects students using your own data. We help with rostering and form groups of four or fewer by skill need.
Design
Together we set the schedule (during, before, or after school), the delivery model (virtual or hybrid), and the curriculum alignment.
Tutor
Trained, NYCPS-cleared tutors teach live sessions three or more times a week. Attendance is taken live and absences are flagged the same day.
Report
Progress reports every two weeks, and an end-of-cycle report comparing each student’s baseline with their results.
Mental Arts
The part most tutoring skips: how learning actually works.
Students who are behind are rarely taught how to study. They are told to review, so they reread, and rereading is among the least effective things a student can do. Every Free School tutoring cycle includes short, explicit lessons in the techniques learning science supports most strongly. Each one is practiced on the literacy or math content itself.
Know
Knowing what you know
Telling real understanding from the feeling of understanding, and checking it before a test does.
Record
Notes that work
Making notes that capture structure and questions, not transcripts, and using them to practice.
Keep
Retrieve and space
Recalling instead of rereading, spacing review over days and weeks, and memory techniques for what has to be memorized.
Apply
Practice deliberately
Finding the exact step that breaks down, practicing it with feedback, and building fluency through mixed practice.
About ten minutes a week inside core sessions, or as an optional standalone module.
The research behind it →Evidence & measurement
Measured every session. Held to a mastery standard.
We follow the research on what makes tutoring effective: high dosage, small groups, a consistent tutor, and close connection to classroom instruction. We measure whether it is working, every session, and report what we find to your team.
Internally, we hold ourselves to a mastery standard: a targeted skill is not marked complete until a student can show it on their own, at 90% or better on our skill checks. This is a goal our tutors are responsible for, not a label we put on students.
- Dosage delivered: minutes per student per week, against the 90-minute standard
- Attendance: taken live, shared with your HIT coordinator the same day
- Skill mastery: share of targeted skills each student has mastered, updated every session
- Growth: baseline compared with end-of-cycle results on our measures and your school’s benchmark
- Experience: short student and teacher surveys at mid-cycle and at the end of the cycle
Where we stand
A new provider, open about its status.
We are a new organization. We would rather tell school leaders exactly where things stand than leave them to guess.
- In progress
ExpandED Tutor Provider Directory
Applying to join the directory that schools use to select providers for the NYC Public Schools HIT initiative.
- In progress
Nonprofit incorporation
Organizing as a New York nonprofit corporation and seating an independent board of trustees.
- Before day one
Clearance, insurance, data agreements
Every tutor cleared through NYCPS PETS, insurance bound, and NYCPS data privacy terms signed before the first session.
- Open
School conversations
Now talking with school leaders and HIT teams about upcoming tutoring cycles.