GOA Partners with People’s Prep for Peer-to-Peer Tutoring

Rebecca Altmann ‘24

This March, GOA, along with other schools and teachers, partnered with People’s Prep Charter School in Newark to create a tutoring program in which GOA students tutor People’s Prep students. Mrs. Schenker serves as GOA’s supervisor for the program.
    “The school reached out to us to see if any students may be interested in getting involved,” Mrs. Schenker said. “Mr. Herskowitz has a contact with the school and thought it would be a good fit.”

Finding connections between school communities has always been an important part of GOA’s values. 
    The tutoring program has shown itself to be highly impactful for both tutors and students, who work on Algebra I and Language Arts.
Once a week, sophomore Tali Goldman signs onto Google Meet and greets a 10th grader at People’s Prep. Goldman helps the student with essays, classwork and homework for his English class. She answers the student’s questions and helps guide him in analyzing the text they are working on.
“Tutoring for People’s Prep is a fulfilling experience and a great learning opportunity,” Goldman said. “I enjoy helping a student in a subject I am interested in, hopefully helping them to connect to the subject more. Through tutoring, I have learned about communication, adapting to different situations and self-reflection, all of which help me to improve my own skills.” 
    Goldman is one of four GOA students participating in the new tutoring program. 
Mrs. Schenker said, “there was a flyer posted in the High School Weekly update asking anyone interested to contact me. An announcement also was made during an NHS meeting.  I had four students volunteer, one student in 9th grade, one in 10th and two in 11th.”
The goal is to give students from GOA the opportunity to connect with high school students from a different school and get experience helping others with learning.
“All volunteers, including those in the community, participated in an online training session with the coordinator of the program at People’s Prep,” Ms. Schenker said. “At People’s Prep, students were identified by their teacher as needing additional support and they also had to be willing to work with a volunteer to help them improve. Then, a match was made based on the tutor’s desire to work in a specific subject.” 
Freshman Mimi Lebeau was matched with a 9th grader to work on Algebra I. 
“We get on the Google Meet and talk while she shares a Jamboard with me with all of her work from that week,”  Lebeau said. “Then, I go over how to solve the problems and then let her take the lead on some to make sure she’s getting it.” 
Lebeau reviews the material to make sure she can explain it clearly. She enjoys meeting and helping someone new.
“The most interesting part has been getting to know her and building a connection,” Lebeau said. 
“When I help my tutee understand a concept, it makes me happy to know that I had a part in that understanding,” Goldman said. “There’s also a learning curve that comes with tutoring, and between tutoring sessions I can reflect on how I can improve my skills to be a more effective tutor.”