For more information
To learn more about the peer tutoring program, contact Josh Gibbs at 970-483-7763 ext. 4204, or gibbsj@wiggins50.k12.co.us.
Even in a small school district like Wiggins, teachers can’t give one-on-one attention to every student—that is, not without help from other students.
Last semester Josh Gibbs, the district’s middle and high school counselor, met with the student council and agreed to start a peer tutoring program. Top-performing high school students are paired with middle school students for tutoring and life advice. The program has been successful so far, and now Gibbs and the tutors want to expand it.
“It came about because I saw the need of some of the younger students, just needing mentoring help,” Gibbs said. “I know how beneficial it is just to have an older individual that’s been through the ropes and understands life a little better, who can help students out.”
About 20 juniors and seniors volunteered for the program, which Gibbs said is about a quarter of the older high school students. Most are on the honor roll or the student council. The students wrote down their name and the subjects they would be most comfortable tutoring, and Gibbs matched them up with middle-schoolers who needed help.
“If we help, it makes our school stronger,” Allison Kopetzky, a 16-year-old honors student and peer tutor, said. “We don’t want kids to just be at the top and other kids to be at the bottom.”
Allison tutors two sixth-graders, mostly in math, which is her favorite subject. But she enjoys helping with just about any lesson, even though it’s sometimes tough to fit in around her college-level homework. Helping kids is her ambition in life, as she hopes to become a speech pathologist after college.
But Allison said the tutoring sessions can be helpful for the tutors as well as the younger kids.
“It helps clarify things a little bit for us,” she said. “Like, we understand, but when we teach somebody about it it’s like ‘Yeah, this does make sense.'”
So far, mentors and mentees have been meeting during their free hours or after school, typically once a week. But the tutors are hoping to turn those weekly meetings into daily ones, and also to get more students involved.
Gibbs believes that’s very possible, but it’ll require a few more volunteers and stronger organization. Right now the program is something of a work in progress, he said. To help move it along, he has now opened it up to all juniors and seniors, not just those in the National Honors Society and the student council.
“It’s going to take…students and teachers working together as a team,” he said.
Allison hopes that by the time she graduates, the peer tutoring program will be big enough to support every struggling student.
“I think we’ll allow more kids to come and help, which I think is fantastic, because it’ll make our school better,” she said.
Stephanie Alderton: 970-867-5651 ext 227, salderton@fmtimes.com or twitter.com/slalderton
