Aspiring teachers enrolled at Sacramento State can gain valuable experience and tuition money tutoring elementary school students thanks to a $1.5 million grant awarded to the Teacher Education Department.

The tutoring program works in conjunction with AmeriCorps, the domestic Peace Corps, said Teacher Education professor Pamela O?Kane. The program will send Sac State students to North Sacramento schools to tutor children in reading and mathematics during the school year.

“The grant is a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the Governor?s Office and the state Department of Education,” O?Kane said. “That amounts to just under $600,000 a year.”

Students will receive a cost of living allowance of $10 per hour, and once they have completed their 450 hours of service for the whole year, AmeriCorps will award them an educational grant of almost $1,200, said Teacher Education professor Karen Horobin.”This is the first time that we have been able to run the tutoring program and pay the students for their valuable time,” Horobin said. “We know that students? time is valuable and that they are college students who need to work. This allows the students to help the children while we help the students themselves.”

Teacher Education professor Noreen Kellough said 80 Sac State students would participate in the program. Only half of the spots are filled, so she encourages interested students to enroll in the remedial reading and mathematics training courses required to participate.

“Professor O?Kane is teaching three full sections, so please sign up,” Kellough said. The remedial reading training course meets Thursday at 1:30 p.m. in Eureka Hall, room 108.Horobin and Kellough wrote the proposal for the grant, which demonstrated that the North Sacramento School District was in need of financial aid and tutoring service. The program will tutor at the district?s 10 elementary schools, helping students in kindergarten through sixth grade.

“We found out about the proposal four weeks before the deadline,” Horobin said. “At that time, I approached Noreen and asked her if she knew of a school district with which we could work well. Noreen suggested working with the North Sacramento School District and after that, it took us many sleepless nights to complete the final proposal.”

The two decided that, based on low Standardized Testing and Reporting test scores, theNorth Sacramento School District was in need of support, Horobin said. The collaboration between Sac State and the district could help to improve student performance, she said.

“We proved that the school district was at a high risk academically, making it an obvious choice with which our students to work,” Kellough said.

Any students who are interested in applying need to be prepared to commit to four afternoons a week, for about three hours a day, O?Kane said.

“This is open to all students who want to apply and it is also open to all freshmen, even though the training is an upper level course,” Professor O?Kane said.