Gevirtz School graduate student Tameisha Hinton tutoring a LAUSD student online
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a new world of virtual education, as schools closed down in accord with stay-at-home orders. The move to online instruction has created a host of problems. In Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), more than 100,000 students (out of over 700,000 total students) were shut out of online instruction because they didn’t have Wi-Fi and digital devices. Although LAUSD has made a historic commitment to provide devices and WiFi access to every family that needs it, families still need to know how to use the technology, and students need live online instruction in order to learn.
Speak UP United Parents—a grassroots parent organization that is responding to the needs of mostly low-income families during the COVID-19 crisis—launched iFamily to address these vital needs by helping to increase parents’ digital knowledge, including training in the use of tech tools such as Zoom that are needed to access online learning for their kids. Once families are able to access their schoolwork and use Zoom, Speak UP iTutors links students with volunteer tutors to help them with their assignments.
Ten of these volunteer tutors are graduate students at UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School. These tutors, all in the Department of Counseling, Clinical and School Psychology, are particularly focusing on tutoring children with moderate to severe disabilities one-on-one.
“This program provides valuable practical experience with K-12 students for the Gevirtz School’s school psychology grad students,” says Jenny Hontz, Communications Director for Speak UP. “What’s more, it’s invaluable to these low-income kids right now, many of whom are receiving no live instruction from their K-12 teachers, as LAUSD teachers are not required to do any live online teaching.” In addition to the cohort from UC Santa Barbara, Speak UP has partnered with the education schools at USC, Loyola-Marymount, and Occidental so their education graduate students also can get practice teaching hours.
“This program provides educational intervention to students with significant needs,” says Skye Stifel, the lecturer in UCSB’s Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology who made the connection with Speak UP. “Most of the LAUSD students paired with our graduate students have moderate to severe disabilities; these are the students who are arguably most greatly affected by the school closures as their comprehensive, individualized education programs can only be limitedly provided via a distance learning format. As future school psychologists, our UCSB graduate students are being trained to be experts in not only counseling and assessment strategies, but also academic interventions and supports. Thus, the iTutoring program is enabling the graduate students to gain first-hand experience with selecting, implementing, and adapting academic interventions and supports during a time of unique circumstances and needs.”
One of the UCSB tutors, Tameisha Hinton, M.S., a second year doctoral student in school psychology, elaborates on what it’s meant to work in the program. “The goal of this collaboration has been to provide academic interventions and support to youth to facilitate learning in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Hinton points out. “However, genuinely getting to know the families I work with and communicating on a weekly basis is at the foundation of this goal. During such unprecedented times, school psychologists are uniquely trained to advocate for the educational and social-emotional needs of children and families. As a school psychologist in training, I am empowered by the opportunity to serve diverse and resilient families while strengthening school and community ties. With Dr. Skye Stifel coordinating this outreach opportunity, the importance of partnership, persistence, and parent engagement across schools and communities at-large is highlighted and represents the heart of this profession that many of us have dedicated ourselves to.”
Online tutoring will continue throughout the summer and into the fall.