TCNJ

22 The College of New Jersey Magazine One, it's the subject most students had trouble keeping up with during the pandemic. And second, state math scores were already concerning pre-pandemic. In 2019, only 48% of the state's fourth graders were at or above pro- ficient levels in math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Those shortcomings were exacerbat- ed during the pandemic, when stu- dents spent months at a time learning Katherine Bassett remotely, many struggling to grasp the virtual lessons. "The idea of a tutoring program really resonated with me," McCotter says. "It is a proven strategy to reach young learners, and I also knew our students at the college could help." Perhaps McCotter's most pivotal decision was hiring Katherine Bassett as the program's director. Bassett, a former New Jersey Teacher of the Year — she won the award in 1980 while a media specialist and librarian in Ocean City — has served as CEO of an organization that trains education leaders and develops model standards for teachers. It was Bassett's idea to refer to the young learners in the program not as students but as scholars. "It sends a strong message that the students are valued," Bassett says, "and that they have strong aptitudes to engage in learning and that we have expecta- tions of them and they have responsi- bilities when it comes to learning." Bassett worked closely with the site coordinators — the liaisons between TCNJ and the 23 teaching locations — including Joan Tucker, who over- saw Williams and the other tutors at the Trenton site. Tucker, a Trenton public school teacher for 21 years, saw firsthand the value of the tutor- ing corps, as she watched students who had declared themselves "math dumb" begin to grasp concepts that had eluded them during the school year. "I noticed that as children inter- acted with the tutors," she says, "they started to comprehend what they misunderstood."

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