TAMPA, Fla. — Good news for parents, students and teachers attending Hillsborough County schools: for the second year in a row, the Hillsborough County School District is offering the digital tutoring tool called PAPER to students for free.
The free digital tutoring service is offered to all Hillsborough County students from grades 6 - 12. Tutors are available on the PAPER app for students 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but parents and students have to contact their child’s teacher or school to learn more.
For students and teachers already using the tool, they say this kind of tool is priceless.
"The tutors on here, they’re very polite and they ask you what you need help with and where you’re struggling. And they’ll walk you step-by-step through the process on how to do it,” said Rampello Downtown Partnership K-8 Magnet School 6th grader, Khailynn Martin.
Her math teacher, Ray Favata, said the service has helped him and his students in more ways than one.
“I think it’s great because normally when they go home and they ask their parents for help. And being that I have fractions and decimals and introducing algebra, a lot of parents don’t remember that because it’s been a while,” he said.
PAPER’s digital tutoring services offer help in over 200 subjects and it’s available in counties all over the country. So far, Hillsborough County is the only district in the Bay area to offer it at a cost to the district, but no cost to parents, teachers or students.
“You’ve got the have’s and the have-nots and everything in between. And so, for those students to all have a level playing fieldm we wanted to provide them with the type of support that is really only available to those who can afford extra tutoring," PAPER CEO Philp Cutler said. "So a platform like PAPER gives every student access to the best levels of support that exist."