OHS Eagle Writing Center Sees Significant Growth
June 26, 2018...The Osbourn High School (OHS) Eagle Writing Center (EWC) has seen significant growth since its start during the 2015-2016 school year. The student-driven center focuses on increasing student writing ability through peer tutoring sessions. The EWC, under the continued guidance of its award-winning director and OHS English teacher Trisha Callihan, will begin its fourth year in the fall of 2018.
The goal of the center is to ensure tutors are available for consultations during the school year. The center has increased the amount of tutors, time and space it provides year over year, which has resulted in a total of 1,750 sessions to date! The EWC is expected to grow to 2,500 sessions and 50 tutors for the 2018-2019 school year due to additional reach at Metz Middle School and collaboration with offsite and onsite programs, including the Advancement through Individual Determination (AVID) program at OHS. Over 400 tutoring sessions were conducted with Metz students during the 2017-2018 school year.
The EWC is an important component of the OHS school improvement plan through its expanision into SOL remediation. To date, test scores have improved an average of 30 points on the writing SOL. Additionally, tutors helped nearly 50 students pass the 2018 writing SOL. The EWC is supported by OHS and has been the recipient of a Manassas City Public Schools Education Foundation grant for multiple years. Mrs. Callihan and several of the EWC’s members presented the center’s progress to the school board at its June 27, 2018 regularly-scheduled meeting in the video below: