On Tuesday, September 29th, a group of seniors began tutoring at Hursey Elementary School. As a part of Erin Atz’s senior thesis, working to improve elementary student’s MAPS testing scores, the seniors traveled right down the road to Hursey Elementary during Focus, and helped the students with a variety of mathematical problems. Prior to Tuesday, Atz had assigned a student to every tutor and told every tutor what area their student most needed to be tutored in; she also developed a lesson plan that she posted on the group Facebook page detailing what each category entailed. When the students entered the hallways of Hursey Elementary they were immediately enchanted by the cute signs all around the building stating things such as “Whalecome” and “We’re Ready to Read!”. Upon meeting the tutees, however, the group of seniors immediately fell in love!

Senior Jensen Haldrup tutored a 5th grader named KJ, whose favorite subject was science; she said that he was great at multiplying, but “still needed help with fractions.” KJ’s two younger sisters also participated in the tutoring. All of the students who were assisted by Magnet tutors were students participating in the Kaleidoscope after-school program who didn’t need to take the bus home after school.The Hursey students were very excited to be starting tutoring and, as Atz said, so is she! Seniors taking part in Atz’s thesis will be tutoring every Focus class until the Hursey students begin MAPS testing in order to hopefully improve the tutees’ scores, and Haldrup and other tutors are “looking forward to it becoming a weekly thing.”

Many seniors at Magnet are doing senior thesis projects giving back to the community around the Charleston area, and for Atz’s thesis the seniors are putting their academic skills to good use by helping the Hursey kids with Math. Haldrup summed up the impact of Atz’s thesis by saying, “I think Erin’s thesis is a great thing and it’s amazing that she’s giving back to the community.”