Program Development – Online Tutoring Opens Doors for Children Eager to Learn
By Eric Steckel | June 26, 2020
As we continue to navigate the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been hearing from so many of you, our Children Rising family. We all feel the urgent need to support students who may have fallen even further behind over the past three months due to the closure of schools in mid-March. Now more than ever, you mean so very much to them.
Your generous gifts helped us adapt to online tutoring. You are providing so many promising children and youth an opportunity to rise to their God-given potential despite COVID-19 disruptions.
The good news is that so many of you are eager to come alongside a promising child eager to learn!
Looking ahead to the 2020-2021 school year, distance learning (online tutoring) will likely play an important role in the education process. We are working closely with the schools this summer to adapt our interventional math and reading tutoring programs for online delivery.
Here is what we envision for delivery of online tutoring:
Tutors will gather in a dedicated space equipped with Children Rising computers and learning materials. A Children Rising clinic coordinator will be present to support and coach each tutor. The room will be set up to provide appropriate physical distance between stations, and is sanitized following each tutoring session. This space will NOT be at a school site. Instead, we will occupy congregation and other community organization spaces in Oakland and the East Bay that are currently not being utilized.
Students at a school site will gather in a space equipped with computers set up to allow appropriate physical distancing. Another Children Rising clinic coordinator will be present at the school site to facilitate electronic connections and learning between tutors and students.
This is a big change from the school-site-based, in-person approach we have previously relied on. However, we are focused on maintaining many of the elements of our tutoring programs that resulted in so much benefit for the children year after year.
In particular, the caring, loving relationship that develops between the children and their tutor is an extremely important aspect of our programs. So as in the past, tutors will be paired with children for the entirety of the school year.
We all feel the urgent need to support students who may have fallen even further behind over the past three months due to the closure of schools in mid-March. Now more than ever, you mean so very much to them.
Every change provides its set of challenges, but also provides its set of opportunities. As we launch online tutoring this fall, we are excited about the potential to increase parental engagement and support for a child’s learning throughout the year.
In addition, while in-person tutoring is a preferred way to develop a one-on-one relationship with a child, some of you may not be able to accommodate that model. Online tutoring presents another delivery option, opening up the potential for many more tutors to nurture and equip a child determined to improve their reading or math skills.
Your support means that aspiring children, ambitious to learn and reach their God-given potential, can thrive this year in school.
We will be providing more information and details in the coming weeks, and hope you are interested and able to provide your love and tutoring skills to the children once again this year. We also recognize that some of you may be experiencing shifts in circumstances in response to the pandemic, which may affect your availability for tutoring.
For those of you interested in online tutoring this fall, we’d like to hear from you. Please take a few minutes to complete the online survey by June 30, 2020 This will help us better plan for the fast-approaching academic year. We welcome and value your comments and input regarding your possible volunteer involvement in the new school year.
Thank you for your ongoing partnership and support of aspiring young students in the community!
