by WINK-TV, Southwest Florida, originally published 2/5/14
Companies that plan to tutor Lee County students this year must agree to new safety guidelines. This comes after a tutor was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a student on a school campus. A two-page safety compliance form is now included with the contract the seven new tutoring companies had to sign before they could work with students.
It has a number of provisions the tutors must agree to, in order to help protect student safety. Most noticable, a requirement that says the vendor (meaning the tutoring company) “will ensure that no tutor will tutor a student one-on-one without being in the direct vision of another adult.”
In January, deputies arrested 66-year-old Gregory Lancaster for allegedly sexually abusing a student he was tutoring at Villas Elementary School last school year. Deputies say it happened while Lancaster was alone with the student, in a room with no windows and the doors shut.
This prompted school leaders to take a closer look at their policies and their contracts with these third-party tutoring companies. The seven new tutoring companies will begin working with students at the end of the month.
To read more click here.