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Downtown Dallas Inc. kicked off North Texas Giving Day at the AT&T Discovery District In downtown Dallas, September 15, 2025. The video board is reflected in a plaza sculpture.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n
A southern Dallas educational<\/a>\u00a0nonprofit is asking donors to help celebrate a milestone anniversary in a big way.<\/p>\n Beacon Hill Preparatory Institute provides in-school and after-school tutoring to more than 1,000 students who need extra support to catch up to their peers. It\u2019s one of more than 3,000 charitable organizations that are raising money as a part of North Texas Giving Day<\/a>, which is Thursday.<\/p>\n This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nonprofit organization\u2019s founding. To mark the occasion, leaders hope to raise $200,000 in private donations, said Kayla Carthel, Beacon Hill\u2019s development manager. The organization already has two matching pledges of $60,000 lined up, putting organizers well on their way to that goal, she said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Related: North Texas schools set AI rules as educators weigh risks and rewards<\/a><\/p>\n Beacon Hill<\/a> provides small-group tutoring to struggling students in 21 schools in southern Dallas. Tutors work with groups of three or four students at a time, said Charnella Derry, Beacon Hill\u2019s president and founder. The small group nature of the program is critical, she said, because it allows tutors to tailor their instruction to students\u2019 individual needs in a way that\u2019s impossible for a teacher working with a class of 25 students. The small group also becomes a safe space for students, many of whom feel self conscious about their academic struggles, she said.<\/p>\n Most of the students who work with Beacon Hill tutors are two to three grade levels behind where they should be,\u00a0Derry said. Beacon Hill can point to numbers suggesting it\u2019s helping those students catch up. Last year, the number of students in the program who tested two or more grade levels behind decreased by 76% in math and 71% in reading.<\/p>\n Education researchers say high-impact tutoring like the program Beacon Hill offers can be a highly effective way of helping struggling students catch up. Over the past six years, districts have invested millions in tutoring programs they hoped would help students make up ground they lost during the pandemic. Those programs often showed less success than school leaders hoped.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a June 2024\u00a0report from the University of Chicago\u2019s Education Lab<\/a>, researchers concluded the disappointing returns were largely due to logistical problems that arose when districts tried to scale those programs up quickly. Tutoring was effective at helping students recover academically, researchers said, but districts struggled to provide as many hours of tutoring as students needed.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Related: Dallas County academic gains are rising, but college completion lags<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n