Testifiers Trumpet Tutoring Initiative

These days, 10-year-old Skyy Merritt knows what’s going on in math class. That wasn’t always the case.

At a packed budget hearing in the Board of Alders chamber, Skyy watched her mom explain the reason for her academic progress: a tutoring program that’s been helping her with math and reading multiple times a week for the last year.

“The tutors are good. They break it down to you,” Skyy said at the Thursday hearing. She’s noticed that even when she’s not working with her tutor, she can follow along in math class far more easily. 

Skyy meets with her tutors multiple times per week through the New Haven Tutoring Initiative, a program created by the city in 2023 thanks to $3 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act pandemic-relief funding.

The program, coordinated by United Way of Greater New Haven, has enlisted over 500 volunteer tutors to provide free, ​“high-dosage” academic tutoring multiple times per week to over 2,800 New Haven students over the course of nearly two years. 

The initiative focuses on reading and math skills, with curricular materials and training provided by New Haven Reads and New Haven Counts. Several other local after-school organizations are hosting tutors through the program as well, with LEAP providing additional outreach and support for the students’ parents.

The program is currently funded through August 2025. In his Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal, Mayor Justin Elicker has pitched reallocating another $1.5 million toward the program, from ARPA funding that was originally slated (but ultimately not needed) to balance last year’s budget. That additional funding would extend the program through December 2026.

“I’m really grateful that I get New Haven Counts and New Haven Reads,” said Skyy. She noted that she’s always been ​“really good at reading,” but now she’s ​“really good at math,” too. 

Skyy’s mom, Kyra Evans, has noticed the same growth. She told the Finance Committee about watching her daughter finish her homework independently this weekend. ​“She did not make a mistake,” Evans recalled, marveling at what that moment said about her daughter’s progress.

“I’m here to testify to how excellent my daughter has been doing ever since she came to New Haven Reads,” Evans told the alders. ​“This is not a want. It’s a need.”

Skyy isn’t alone in seeing that progress. According to the New Haven Tutoring Initiative’s 2024 annual report, students enrolled in the program have shown substantial academic improvement. The report states that students who attended at least 90 percent of their literacy tutoring sessions improved their reading skills by an average of 28 percent, while students who attended at least 15 math tutoring sessions scored 92 percent higher on a ​“fact fluency” math assessment.

When asked whether the Mayor’s office plans to continue the program beyond the ARPA timeline, city spokesperson Lenny Speiller replied in an email, ​“The need and demand is clearly there – and, working in partnership with the Board of Alders, we hope to be able to continue the program for as long as possible.”

Over 20 supporters of the tutoring initiative — including parents, tutors, and afterschool educators — attended the Finance Committee public hearing to advocate for further funding.

Stephanie Wratten, the executive director of the tennis program New HYTEs, which has hosted tutors through the initiative, spoke to the aldermanic Finance Committee about the need for the funding despite the program’s reliance on volunteers.

“There are expert staff who are providing support to those tutors,” Wratten said. The funding is ​“critical for training, for coordination, for developing and collecting the quality instruction material,” as well as for collecting data, she said. Tutors’ training in an evidence-based curriculum is what ​“ensures consistency” and makes the program effective, she said.

Kim Harris, whose organization Inspired Communities Inc. is also a tutoring host, spoke to the dedication of the families participating in the program. ​“Some of my parents have to take two buses, going and coming, in the dark and in the cold,” she said. 

“It’s one of New Haven’s most important and impactful programs for today and for tomorrow’s future,” Harris said. ​“I can’t wait for the day when our kids are sitting where you are — future mayors, future alders — and they say to us, ​‘I made it because of programs like this.’”