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Tutors at BHS student learning center go unpaid 

In 1999, in its inaugural year, Berkeley High School’s Student Learning Center, which provides tutoring and college preparatory classes during the 

day, and serves as a drop-in tutoring center after school, had two co-directors, 30 tutors and a bounce in its step.  

Today, the SLC, developed in large part to address the “achievement gap” separating white and minority students, has one director, five tutors and a financial crisis on its hands. 

In December, the program, funded largely through grant money, spent the last of its allotment from a three-year, federal “twenty-first century” grant, leaving it unable to pay last semester’s tutors fully. 

The tutors, UC Berkeley students, also received payment through the university’s Professional Development Program, and Crystal McClendon-Gourdine, SLC director, says the high school administration is working to come up with its full share of the tutor salaries. 

Prior to the 2001-2002 school year, the Berkeley Schools Excellence Project, or BSEP, the center’s other major grant funder, cut its annual grant to the program from over $100,000 the previous year to about $24,000 this year.  

McClendon-Gourdine says the decline in funding has affected the quality of SLC services. “The activities are the same,” she said, making reference to the tutorials, college tours and writing coaches at the heart of the program. “The individualized attention and level of engagement is different.” 

But Dan Fingerman, chair of the BSEP Berkeley High School Site Committee, defended his organization’s decision to cut funding. He noted that BSEP must divide its dollars, derived from a special local tax, between over 30 worthy programs at the high school. He also argued that the Student Learning Center’s shortcomings preceded the funding cuts, and in fact, led to those cuts. 

“I don’t know which is the cart and which is the horse,” he said, referring to the cuts and decline in services. “To some degree the decrease in funding came as a result of the center not quite providing the support we hoped it would.” 

An evaluation of the program in its first year, by a pair of UC Berkeley graduate students, called the center, which serves a largely African-American and Latino student base, an “active and dynamic place,” and recorded several positive comments by tutors and students, who talked of improved study skills and beneficial trips to college campuses.  

But, it also pointed to a series of problems – uneven performance by tutors, a lack of communication and a leadership that was often absent.  

Fingerman also points to data showing little improvement in the grade point averages of SLC students. 

“It’s a legitimate concern, because everyone wants higher GPAs,” said McClendon-Gourdine. But, the director argued that the high school and district administration has never given the center the proper professional development, curricular support and financial backing it needs to flourish. 

Mary Ann Valles, BHS co-principal, said historically, the center has not received proper backing. 

“They could have been the beneficiaries of greater support in previous years,” she acknowledged. Valles added that a program like the SLC generally takes about five years to establish itself, suggesting that the center has not had adequate time to yield measurable results. 

Shirley Issel, president of the Board of Education, said part of the problem is a lack of coordination between high school support services – from the Student Learning Center, to guidance counselors, to the BHS health center. “Programs like the SLC have tended to operate in isolation from other programs on site,” she said. 

Valles said the high school began to address the problem last year with the formation of a “support providers group.”  

McClendon-Gourdine said the center, in its headier days, was able to address the issue, to some degree, by assigning several of its tutors to serve as "youth advocates." With more funding, she said, the center could put the advocates back in place. But, at this point, with the school district in serious fiscal trouble, the future of the program is unclear. According to the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, or FCMAT, a state agency that has been providing the district with financial advice since October, the district is $1.6 million in debt this year, and will be $7.8 million in debt next year if the Board of Education does not make cuts. 

Joaquin Rivera, vice president of the school board, said he believes the Student Learning Center is a quality program and hopes it will remain in place. 

But, he said the SLC, like other programs that have depended on grant funding since their inception, present the district with a particularly difficult challenge in tight times. 

“You get the grants and they dry up in a few years and the district is supposed to pick up the slack,” Rivera said. “It’s hard for the districts. We’re strapped for cash.” 

Lamont Harper and Kendall Murphy, sophomores at Berkeley High School who participate in the center’s Advancement Via Individual Determination, or AVID program, which focuses on students with a 2.0-3.5 GPA who want to go to college, say the district should do all it can to maintain funding for the SLC. 

“This is one of the programs at the school that helps you get into college,” said Harper, who placed particular emphasis on a writing program that allows students to work through several drafts of papers, and improve their skills. “We need to fund it.”