Wanted: 100 More Volunteer Tutors

A citywide math and literacy tutoring effort has reached 1,700 New Haven elementary school students since launching nearly a year ago — and is now on the lookout for 100 more volunteer tutors this summer, on top of the 240 who are currently signed up, to keep the program growing. 

Mayor Justin Elicker and representatives from various partnering nonprofit organizations delivered those updates Tuesday afternoon during a press conference at Wexler Grant School at 55 Foote St.

The presser offered an update on the New Haven Tutoring Initiative (NHTI), a math- and reading-focused program that provides high-dosage tutoring for 1st through 5th graders. 

The effort launched in July 2023 with $3 million in city-allocated federal pandemic relief support, and has since reached 1,700 elementary school students, including 1,300 this school year. The program relies on community volunteers, and currently has 240 such volunteers tutoring for hourlong weekly sessions.

Standing underneath a jumbo-sized book and apple, NHTI leaders and participants said on Tuesday that the literacy and math tutoring program comes as a result of New Haven Public Schools’ ongoing challenges with addressing learning loss during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Click here to watch the full press conference. 

Click here to sign up to become a volunteer.

The $3 million pandemic-aid-funded effort is run by United Way, New Haven Reads, and LEAP.

The Tuesday presser aimed to inspire more volunteers to join in on the work. 

At the presser, Elicker said New Haven students’ learning loss must be addressed with all hands on deck rather than looking towards just NHPS to carry the weight. Thus the need for the NHTI’s outside-of-classroom-hours tutoring efforts.

The program’s 6‑week pilot last summer served more than 400 students. While NHTI currently has 240 volunteer tutors supporting the work, leaders expect to triple the program’s students this summer, which will require an additional 100 volunteer tutors.

“We need more volunteers,” Elicker said. ​“As someone that did this myself, it is not only a gift that you give to the community, but it’s something that is a gift to yourself as well.”

The mayor said that he spent Friday afternoons last summer tutoring a Davis Street School eighth grader named Monair in reading — and urged other New Haveners to sign up this year to do the same. 

He added in a followup phone interview on Tuesday that city staff have been encouraged to take excused time off to tutor for the NHTI program.

So far, student participation has passed NHTI leaders’ initial goal to have served 1,400 students by this summer. 

The initiative has also grown its nonprofit partners from an initial team of eight organizations to, as of Tuesday, 18 operating out of a dozen different tutoring sites across the city.

New Haven Reads Executive Director Kirsten Levinsohn reported on Tuesday that 87 percent of participating students have shown significant improvements in phonemic awareness and word recognition skills, according to an assessment conducted this spring. 

New Haven Counts Co-Founder and Executive Director Ronald Coleman shared that 94 percent of participating students that were assessed in the winter and spring have showed growth in their basic math-facts fluency.

“Nothing is more important than bringing a whole city together for our kids,” Levinsohn said.

At the conclusion of Tuesday’s presser New Haven students Justice Pearson, 10, Victoria Manley, 9, and Javian Lopez, 9, told this reporter that they enjoy that their twice-a-week math tutoring in Wexler’s library. They described the tutoring sessions as engaging and as teaching them with the help of fun math games.