SPRINGFIELD — Springfield City School District is saving thousands of dollars on afterschool tutoring by using work-study or volunteer college students from local colleges as tutors to staff the program.

“There is no more money, so you’ve got to use what we have,” said Springfield City School District Superintendent David Estrop. “You can re-purpose it or you can find a different way of doing something. But you can’t say we need to spend more money doing this because there is no more money.”

Another Ohio school district has invited Springfield to visit to share information about the partnership and the district’s use of college students and volunteers as tutors. Representatives from Springfield and Wittenberg University recently traveled to Barberton to make a presentation on the reading clubs and their partnership.

“When schools take the time to share their good ideas, then more students can benefit,” said Estrop. “That’s what we’re all about — helping prepare more students for success.”

Tutors typically cost the district about $21.70 per hour.

The reading and math clubs at Perrin Woods and Lincoln elementary schools staffed by college students has saved the schools about $25,000 this year, the district estimates.

“We’re always looking for ways that we can be more effective as well as more efficient, so we can either re-purpose dollars that we’ve saved ... or we find ways to get it done in a similar way that doesn’t bear as much costs,” said Estrop.

Perrin Woods operates a math club staffed by student volunteers from Cedarville University.

Next year, the district hopes to form a more formal partnership that would allow students to use federal work-study dollars, so they can earn a wage while they’re working with the kids, said Sara Dixon, linkage coordinator at Perrin Woods.

“The literacy leaders ... at Perrin Woods and now Lincoln, they are tutors that come to these elementary schools through the America Reads program and this federal work-study,” said Trish Garrison, project coordinator for the Hagen Center for Civic and Urban Engagement. “They’re actually paid through federal work-study dollars.”

The wage, which must be at least federal minimum wage, helps some students do service work in the schools, said tutor and Wittenberg junior Liz Guyer. Guyer said she works about eight hours a week between preparation and tutoring.

“I wouldn’t say that I wouldn’t be taking the job without the pay only because it’s so important to me,” she said. “As a college student, when you’re putting that much time into something, you really need it to be like a job and pay like a job.”

But it’s more than a job for the tutors, said Garrison.

“The benefit to the students is far and above what their salary is to do this work,” she said. “What our literacy leaders really like about it is it’s a very creative process.”

Students have to apply for the position and then are interviewed and selected by SCSD staff.

The students work with a curriculum designed — at no cost to Springfield schools — by Wittenberg education professor Roberta Linder. Materials, books and even mentoring, was donated by Southgate Baptist Church.

The hour the voluntary club is in session includes a game centered on vocabulary or a related lesson, a hands-on activity and writing time, as well as time for reading together.

Some students even work with Linder to develop their own lesson plans.

Community partners such as Wittenberg professor Matthew Smith, an expert on comics, and Four Paws, a service dogs organization, do sessions with the groups.

At the end of the year, the clubs present a showcase to their parents.

Cedarville students running the math clubs don’t have a specific curriculum, but instead work directly with the school staff to focus on skills the students are struggling to master, said Dixon.

If Cedarville could also offer a work-study opportunity for the tutors, it could attract even more students, said freshman education major Aaron Davis.

“I would definitely take advantage of it if the opportunity came my way,” he said.

The work-study program allows students to combine a desire to work with students and serve the community while earning money to help pay for school, said Wittenberg junior Meghan McLaughlin, who is minoring in education.

“I never had a job on campus and I wanted a way to actually be involved in the community and combine education with that,” she said.

While some teachers are seeing results with individual students, improving academic gains with the clubs is a continued part of the effort, said Estrop.

Dixon hopes to see the program continue to grow.

“This is a really cool model that has lots of potential to expand,” she said. “If that does happen, we hope to expand it to integrate our social and emotional development, and service learning.”

That the program is serving as a model for other school districts interested in utilizing tutoring to improve student outcomes without adding costs is just an added bonus.

“We’re pleased that Springfield City School District is again being recognized as an innovative school district, and we were happy to travel to Barberton to share details about our work with Wittenberg in developing the elementary school reading clubs,” said Estrop. “We were also impressed with the University of Akron/Barberton project, and we’ll be collaborating more in the near future.

“The reading clubs serve as an example of creativity accomplishing goals to improve student outcomes without great expense to the district.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0373.