Please note I am not condeming Americorp, St. Lucie County Reads or any other tutoring group that enters Florida Schools.  I just don't want what happened to me and my child  to happen to someone else. 

Most schools are now offering additional reading help for your child; it's simple fill out the permission slip and your son or daughter is supposed to be given 90 min of extra instruction a week done in school,performed by an outside tutor group, for example Americorp.  What you are not told, because it is NOT WRITTEN ANYWHERE on the permission slip is that in order to perform this feat of extra help, your child will be removed from his/her classes.  Most children that have low reading scores during Grammar/reading lesson time will also have low scores for any class requiring reading comprehension, so to remove the child from Math, Social Science or English is detrimental to the child because if forces them to continuously play "catch-up" in their classwork.

The other problem comes when the "tutor" takes it upon his/her self to continuously pull the child from the same class, and the grades drop (this is what happened in my child's case).  Don't look for help from the agency whose permission slip you signed, - your signature gives them a free pass.  I was told quite clearly, " You signed the slip, it's not our problem". It is then left very unfairly up to the school to correct the problem. 

Please ask how an In- School tutoring session is performed before signing what could possibly be a detriment instead of a help to your child.

I was lucky, my child's elementary school corrected the problem,( but this was last year before the budget cuts), now  not all schools can or have the budget to do so.

Iam not condemning any one particular program, only giving a much needed warning in regards to permission slips that come from outside agencies that are allowed to operate inside our elementary schools during regular class time.