PBH to Send More Tutors Into Roxbury

Phillips Brooks House will significantly expand its teaching program in the Roxbury slum schools this year, using Negro tutors for the first time and possibly bringing volunteers from outside the College into the program.

The PBH project, called the Roxbury Education Program, will put 90 Harvard-Radcliffe volunteers into classrooms as tutors. Hayden Duggan '68, co-chairman of the program, said yesterday that he hoped to recruit 15 to 20 parents and college students from Operation Exodus, a local civil rights organization, to teach classes along with the Harvard and Radcliffe volunteers.

Since PBH changed the name of its project from the Book Exposure Program, to the Roxbury Education Program, volunteer applications from Negroes at Harvard and Radcliffe have soared. One fourth of the PBH volunteers working in Roxbury this year will be Negro; last year there were none.

The staff of the Roxbury Education Program has also been integrated for the first time because of the response from Negroes at Harvard and Radcliffe.

Operation Exodus' participation in the PBH project must be approved by the Roxbury School Board. Operation Exodus runs an after-school tutorial program similar to PBH's, and buses Negro students to neighboring schools in an effort to alleviate racial imbalance in Roxbury schools.

Volunteers in the Book Exposure Program have been working in Roxbury for the past four years, teaching 9-13 year old children in the fourth through sixth grades. The curriculum is built around class discussion of a book one afternoon a week.

The expanded program was made possible by an $8000 Ford Foundation grant and the new volunteers. The grant will provide $12 per student for books this year, compared to $10 per student last year. Thirty five new volunteers will enable PBH to teach 22 classes this year, compared to 14 last year and enrollment will grow from 420 students to about 770. Most of these are from low-income families.

The tutorial program will also include trips, and conferences with the students parents. This addition is aimed at strengthening community and parent participation in Roxbury public schools, Duggan said.