ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Allentown schools are bringing in some outside help these days.

The district has enlisted an online program to give students extra help and even live tutoring anywhere, any time.

8-year-old Nathan Azar is in second grade. He says he really likes math.

“He seemed to be on grade level and on target when the year started,” Jeffrey Lumsden, Nathan’s second-grade teacher at Ritter Elementary School, said.

And lately, Nathan’s been taking his skills to the next level.

This year, the Allentown School District started enlisting outside help from a tutoring platform called Brainfuse.

“They can do many things on it,” Rachel Beck, a school counselor at Ritter Elementary, said. “They can do enrichment. They can get homework help.”

It also includes live tutoring.

The program is available for all of ASD’s 16,000-plus students and families, for help on any subject, anytime, anywhere.

“It’s on demand, they’re on 24 hours a day,” Beck said. “Anywhere that they have internet access and their school devices.”

The district tells 69 News it used $143,000 in ESSER funds, allocated to address learning loss, for the platform.

The schools are currently collecting data to see if and how the students are improving with the added technology. The district tells 69 News that so far, it’s seen about a 50 percent decrease in students with Ds or Fs.

“Nathan’s the man, he’s doing awesome,” P.J. Santos, a school-based counselor with Valley Youth House, said.

Nathan’s number skills are sky high lately, with the help.

“I’m getting higher grades and I’m getting more 10 out of 10s,” Nathan said.

“Nathan, really nice personality, he’s a hard worker,” Lumsden said. “But all of a sudden, his confidence level shot up. We’re doing math, suddenly his hand’s up constantly, suddenly he’s expressing more interest in math.”

The district says so far about 2,000 students are actively on the program.

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