The Community School Partnership of Mentors and Tutors was created to support any student in the West Chester Area School District who needs assistance to access, maintain, and, sustain their passion for academic success.

The community school partnership for tutors and mentors will offer virtual sessions to any student who needs academic, socio-emotional, time management, executive functioning support, or need someone to listen to them. If you are available to connect with a child from K-12 for 15 - 45minutes once each week, we need you!

Many children begin school with a curiosity to learn. They are excited to participate, eager to make friends, solve problems, and complete task to the best of their ability within reasonable time. However, at some point, some children lose the excitement of school. Getting up to go to school then becomes a chore and monotony. The symptoms of lethargy, truancy, incomplete assignments, lack of engagement become synonymous with poor academic performance. Throughout the country, many school districts are struggling to meet expectations especially after the far-ranging impact of COVID. It is no surprise that some wonder why WCASD, a high performing school that is ranked in the top 10% of Pennsylvania school districts need a tutoring and mentoring program?

The answer is simple. First, children will be able to engage with community members from various backgrounds and experiences who can serve as role models to help them connect school to real life. Secondly, our mission is to inspire and educate all children to achieve their personal best. If 10% of our 12, 000 students underperform, that is 1, 200 children. If we look at the number in terms of generations, 1,200 can grow exponentially over the years to tens of thousands.

Research shows that students who had difficult school experience, develop an unfavorable and fearful response to school which gets passed on their children. Consequently, in an effort to ensure all our students achieve their personal best, we must intentionally strategically target the 10, 12, 13, 14, or 15% of our students who find it challenging t achieve their educational goal. To meet the diversity of students and their unique needs, the programs and support we provide must be equally as varied to ensure access and convenience for those whom we seek to serve. By instituting a mentoring and tutoring initiative made up of volunteers from our community, we hope to capture any student who shows signs of floundering. From the onset, students will be paired with a mentor or tutor as an intervention to help them carve a path to their success.

We believe every child who is tutored or mentored will develop a healthy well- being. Thereby, they will feel empowered to pursue their passion and be on a path that leads them to positive outcome. That is the WHY!

In the early spring of 2023, the WCASD held an informational Launch of the community school partnership of tutoring and mentoring at Peirce Middle School. Approximately 90 members of the community attended, including students, parents, community members, and WCASD administrative and teaching staff.

The next steps include a meeting of mentors and tutors. The goal will be to assess needs of prospective mentors and tutors to prepare adequate and relevant training prior to the big launch in the fall of 2023.

We plan to have a Community Day late September to kick off our Community School Partnership for Mentors and Tutors. Please be on the look out for updates of all events pertaining to the initiative.