Every young person needs help at one time or another. The demand locally for tutors and mentors is especially great, because more than half the 12,000 students in Cambridge and Somerville schools are labeled “high needs” for various reasons; thousands of them, including most immigrant students, do not speak English as their first language and can use help with reading and writing.
Fortunately, about 900 volunteers contribute tens of thousands of hours annually to help. If they were paid at a modest $40 rate for tutors – who may in fact charge $100 per hour or more – their services would cost more than $1 million annually. Yet the value to students and to society is even larger.
Three local nonprofits specialize in providing tutoring and mentoring services to students: Cambridge School Volunteers, Tutoring Plus and Enroot. They work cooperatively to provide largely complementary services; receive money from government agencies as well as other sources; and depend on volunteers developing supportive relationships with students. Each has been in operation for decades, and none charge students or families a fee. All three provide training and support to volunteers; no prior experience is required.
There are also differences. For example, Cambridge School Volunteers works with students in 18 public schools, while Tutoring Plus offers its services at five locations after the school day ends. Enroot focuses especially on mentoring immigrant students, rather than on tutoring. Many students who are tutored need mentoring and vice versa, though, so often there are overlapping needs.
Benefits for volunteers
Tutoring or mentoring students is personally rewarding, which is why so many people volunteer. At a time the needs of local youth are great, it feels good to be able to help others directly.
“I want to make a difference and make an investment in these young people,” said Christopher Kalisch, who volunteers for Tutoring Plus and is a member of their board. Because he thinks the experience is important and rewarding, Kalisch commutes an hour each way once a week to meet with students. “I also try to interact with their parents,” he said. His commitment is unusual; most people live or work closer to where they volunteer.
Although he did well as a mathematics student himself, “it was humbling to tutor math,” he said. His own schooling took place years ago, and the way mathematics is taught has changed, so he needed to adapt.
He emphasized, however, that for Tutoring Plus the primary goals are less about academics than to help immigrant youth – from Ethiopia, Sudan, Bangladesh, Haiti and many other nations – become successful members of the community whose circles expand, are kind to each other, understand differences and support their peers. He likes to help young people help themselves, he said.
Cambridge School Volunteers
With 600 to 700 people giving their time, Cambridge School Volunteers is the largest provider of local tutoring services. CSV works with students of all needs and levels, as even advanced students sometimes need help. Services are provided in all Cambridge public schools, so it is not necessary for students to leave school to be tutored.
Volunteers tutor once a week for an hour. They are asked to commit for a full semester because developing a relationship with a student takes time, though CSV will accept new volunteers any time during the school year.
The tutoring varies by school level. For example, high school students are the only ones who can ask for help with a specific class.
CSV supports students through more than a dozen programs. In the Netpals program, students correspond with a scientist and have an opportunity to visit a company that specializes in science or technology, each of which provide a team of volunteers for the program. Another program focuses on art and science, and there is one focusing on the natural world.
Tutoring Plus
Tutoring Plus provides several free programs to Cambridge students in grades 4-12, relying on more than 100 volunteers. The programs emphasize personal and social and growth by building relationships beyond homework and academic help. “This can take shape through conversations about interests and hobbies, discussing short- and long-term goals and/or sharing stories about various life experiences,” its website notes.
Volunteers meet with students at one of five locations across Cambridge. Services are as individualized as possible, and volunteers are encouraged to develop relationships with students’ families. One measure of success is that about 75 percent of students return the next year.
Like Cambridge School Volunteers, Tutoring Plus asks that volunteers provide an hour per week and commit to a full semester. They prefer that work begins at or near the beginning of a semester.
Enroot
Enroot offers after-school and summer programs to immigrant students in Cambridge and Somerville high schools. Many of the students are still learning English and often have faced adversity as they are growing up.
The roughly 100 volunteers work to develop close relationships with students, typically spending an hour and a half each week with them. The organization prefers but does not require that volunteers be immigrants themselves, speak another language or have lived in countries from which students emigrated.
Like the other two organizations, Enroot offers several programs, including student internships, help on college essays and homework centers.
Growing needs
All three organizations would welcome more volunteers; the pandemic hit school-age children hard and increased students’ need for support while contributing to a significant decline in the number of adults volunteering for nonprofits.
Remote work opportunities mean that many people who used to come to Cambridge and Somerville to work now come less often and won’t volunteer here, the groups said – part of the reason each has a waiting list for services.
The application processes for the three organizations are similar, including the need for prospective volunteers to undergo a criminal record check before they are accepted.
Information about each nonprofit is available on their websites. Also, Cambridge Volunteers maintains a free, online, searchable database describing the tutoring, mentoring and other jobs available in more than 200 local nonprofits.
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