Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the College Access And Tutoring Contracts topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Counselors press district for CARPE and HeyTutor data as board seeks more transparency
Summary
Counselors and union representatives urged Sweetwater Unified to publish data on Carpe college-access programming and a proposed HeyTutor contract; district staff said data will be provided and the board approved related agenda items with mixed votes.
Counselors and union representatives on July 21 pressed the Sweetwater Union High School District for transparency and measurable outcomes from its multi-year participation in the Carpe college-access network and from a contract with the tutoring vendor HeyTutor.
"If we are investing in an initiative year after year, we deserve transparency, results, and alignment with the needs on the ground," said Liza Beth Garcia, president of the Sweetwater Counseling and Guidance Association. Garcia told the board the district allocates about $18,000 per participating high school site per year for Carpe and said counselors lack direct access to some Carpe resources.
District staff responding to the board said Carpe is funded at the district level through El Cap and that the district uses braiding of funding sources — Title I, LCAP, learning recovery and A–G grants — to support college-going work. "We do have the FAFSA completion data. We also have data in terms of A–G completion," Dr. Alvarez said, and staff agreed to provide a three-year update on Carpe data to the board and to school sites.
Separately, a public speaker raised questions about HeyTutor, asserting the district committed about $6,000,000 for in-person group math tutoring across 26 schools — approximately 102 tutors at $60 per hour for 25 hours per week, a figure the speaker said amounts to roughly $58,680 per tutor per year — and asked for outcome data to justify the expenditure. The board later approved item g3 (related materials) by a 5–0 vote; a separate board action on a staff report (item f3) passed 4–1.
Board members asked staff to make Carpe data and FAFSA trends available to the board and to site counseling teams; staff cautioned that federal changes to the FAFSA platform may create atypical results in one of the years and offered to provide a three‑year view to show trends. No new funding commitments were announced during the meeting; the board directed staff to provide the requested data and reports.
