Mennonite Central Committee News Service
May 13, 1964
NASHVILLE AND ATLANTA HAVING MCC SUMMER TUTORIAL
PROJECTS
Akron, Pa (MCC)--Last summer, the
Mennonite Central Committee cooperated with the South Street
Community Center, Nashville, Tennessee, to conduct a summer school
in remedial reading for 100 youngsters in the South Nashville
area to combat one of the most difficult problems facing Nashville's
schools--retarded reading skills.
The MCC supplied four teachers last
year to work for six weeks with children who had fallen behind
in school. The results were so encouraging that Nashville officials
requested that MCC expand the project this summer. Costs will
be covered by funds donated by local charitable organizations.
The tutorial program will coincide
with the dates of the regular public summer school project, June
15-August 7. Training will be offered to children in grades one
through four at Carter-Lawrence and Murrell Elementary schools.
The teachers, recruited for the MCC Summer Service program, are
all licensed instructors who teach during the regular school
year in other states.
M. D. Neely, assistant supervisor
of instruction for the Nashville city schools, emphasized that
the project has the support of the Metropolitan Board of Education.
"We are deeply grateful,"
Neely said, "for the work being done by these volunteers
with students. Many youngsters have been given a boost in their
school work they normally would not get."
The operation is an extension of a
broad MCC program concerned with such conditions as crowded classrooms,
inadequate home support, and poor living quarters that cause
children to fall behind in their school work. A successful pilot
tutorial plan in Nashville last summer has resulted in establishing
a similar program in Atlanta, Georgia, this summer. Four Summer
Service certified teachers will launch a tutorial project in
an Atlanta elementary school located in the neighborhood of Mennonite
House, home of the MCC unit in Atlanta.
Last year's venture was the first of
its kind carried out in the U.S. by the Mennonite Central Committee.
Next year likely will see a similar project in Kansas City and
possibly other cities.
-30-
mb13may64