DC community leaders asking tutors to help students catch up after pandemic learning loss
Washington, DC — The return to class this fall comes with concerns that students have lost a lot of information since the pandemic.
School and community members both believe that tutoring and mentoring are ways that can help students make the grade.
Johanna Schneider decided to become a tutor during the pandemic when she realized how much students were missing. She made weekly visits with a little girl named Jadyn.
“My little girl, she was in first grade and made tremendous strides,” said Schneider, who is retired.
Besides the one-on-one sessions, she worked with other students this summer. There, Schneider saw how serious the learning loss is.
“Some could read, and some were struggling to look at the page and ascertain what was on the page. So, they could not understand the phonetic spellings,” she said.
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She is one volunteer, but students need more tutors. The D.C. Tutoring and Mentoring Initiative is searching for thousands of tutors and mentors to staff local programs.
“The achievement gap gets wider. Even prior to COVID, two out of three D.C. students needed extra support, both academic support as well as an extra caring adult in their lives,” said Tom Pollack, Director of D.C. Tutoring and Mentoring Initiative.
His organization works with about 50 others in the DMV area. And now Pollak says it has been hard to recruit volunteers.
“It’s been disappointing. We are passing out hundreds of flyers every weekend trying to engage people and talk about what are the barriers to getting involved,” he said.
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Johanna became emotional when she talked about the progress she has seen with her student.
“It is a wonderful thing to see a lightbulb go on. It’s a wonderful thing to see a kid realize, ‘oh I get it, I can go on. I can go to the next grade level, I can go to the next book,'” she explained.
