Looking for a great idea for parent volunteers to help out at a high school?
Here’s one from Fremont High School in Northern California that provides tutoring for students.
Parent volunteer Julie Darwish helped start the Students for Success Club at the high school in the city of Sunnyvale that brings together student volunteers from the National Honor Society with students who need help with school work. (The school is part of the Fremont Union High School District.)
This year, the program has brought together about 500 students in need of help with 100 tutors. If that’s not impressive enough, consider this: Fully one-third of the school’s student body participates. On an average day, about 94 students and 27 tutors work together.
The results speak for themselves:
A full 50 percent of regular participants improved at least one letter grade during the program’s first full year.
And Students for Success and other improvement efforts on campus have contributed to a 30-point increase in the school’s Academic Performance Index score, a more than 4 percent increase in one year.
“I know it’s helping the students,” Darwish said. “And that’s where the satisfaction comes from.”
Here are some keys to Students for Success’ - well - success:
Attendance is voluntary for students who need help. Students do not need to be “failing.” Darwish said some students who come in for help may be doing quite well in school but need a bit of help in one subject.
Incentive drawings are held each month for tutors and tutees. Students who attend at least one tutoring session a month for 30-minutes or more can participate in a monthly drawing for a $20 cash prize. Students get one drawing ticket for each session they attend. And one tutor per month also wins $20. The Fremont High PTSA donates the prize money. The total cost: less than $400 for the entire school year.
The incentives help, but Darwish said students see the results of the extra effort and that is what keeps them coming back for more.
“They starting seeing the benefits,” she said. “Their grades start to improve. They start the habit of coming on their own.”
Members of the National Honor Society need to volunteer at least 10 hours a semester. So having a volunteer opportunity on campus is very appealing, especially for students who don’t have the means to volunteer elsewhere.
An awards banquet is held at the end of the year to honor all tutors and the tutees who logged the most hours and have shown the most improvement academically. Outstanding tutors and tutees can win prizes that the honor society cabinet solicits from merchants.
Teachers, parents and students working together
Darwish said she and Khir Johari, the school’s National Honor Society adviser and a math teacher, came up with the idea for the club while talking about volunteer opportunities for NHS members. Their community service work was being done away from school, and Darwish and Johari thought it would be more beneficial to channel that volunteer effort to helping other students.The program started in the fall of 2006.
Tutoring sessions take place in the library between 1:30 and 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday. (The sessions are so popular, students have to be given a 5-minute warning that the library is closing, Darwish said.)
Here’s are a few other keys to success:
The atmosphere is informal, so tutors can move from one group of students to another. Sometimes a student will need help for just a few minutes, sometimes longer.
And since these are high school students, some socializing is allowed, so long as noise stays at “a healthy level and everyone is working productively,” Darwish said.
Tutors sign up to help twice a week, but their schedules can be flexible to allow for participation in sports, music and other extracurriculars.
In addition to the student tutors, the school has found money to pay some teachers to attend the tutoring sessions and a part-time coordinator has been hired. Darwish said about 10 parents take turns volunteering to handle logistics, but they do not tutor students.
For more information on Students for Success, which won the National PTA Excellence in Education Partnership Award for 2007-2008, you can read a story at the Public School Insights Web site at publicschoolinsights.org You can also contact Julie Darwish at jsdarwish@sbcglobal.net
