ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – For thousands of Orange County families, the school year has been ripped apart. Campuses shuttered, classrooms empty, and teachers left wondering what comes next. But in the middle of all this uncertainty, one local counseling and tutoring group is stepping in creating a new path for both kids and educators.
School closures across Orange County are turning families’ lives upside down, forcing students to start over and leaving teachers without a classroom — or a paycheck.
“Since maybe August, there’s been so much more need — even before the school closures,” said Abby Hartmann with the Hartmann Center.
This week, the district confirmed more school closures could be on the way. But the Hartmann Center — a tutoring and counseling group in Winter Park — may have a solution for both students and displaced teachers.
Their center is seeing more families asking for them to teach their kids, but they need more teachers to meet the need.
After watching our reports on the closures, Abby Hartmann and Abby McCarthy say they’re now connecting with former educators from shuttered schools to create a homeschool support program.
“We’d support maybe five to ten students at a time, where parents can choose to send their child one to two — or even three — times a week, for three to four hours at a time,” said Abby McCarthy with the Hartmann Center. “They’ll work with a certified teacher using a research-based curriculum.”
They believe the program can expand services and reconnect displaced students with the teachers they lost. “The hope is that they can grow, pay their bills, and stay in the field of education that we all love — and that we see disappearing in front of our eyes,” Hartmann said.
The Hartmann Center says they’ve already spoken with teachers from Chickasaw and McCoy Elementary, as well as Legends Academy, and hope to be up and running as soon as February.
Hartmann says the teachers would most likely be employed contractually, but it could eventually turn into something bigger.
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