One-hundred seventy-eight hours. That’s how much time 18 Brookline students clocked in helping their classmates one-on-one through the National Honor Society’s peer tutoring program in the past five months, according to the program’s sign-up sheet.
But is anyone actually being tutored?
“From what I’ve seen, zero tutoring is actually happening,” said Bridget Knightly, a librarian familiar with the program, which takes place in the 115 Greenough library.
Out of the six volunteers interviewed by The Cypress, not one tutored a single student, and all still received credit for their “tutoring.” The volunteers say that’s the program’s fault, not theirs.
Brookline’s chapter of the National Honor Society offers initial membership to seniors who meet three criteria: No scholastic or behavioral violations, a 3.3 GPA or higher and at least 15 community service hours completed during junior year.
For students this year who met the first two criteria but had not obtained those 15 hours, National Honor Society advisers Kevin Whitehead and Clifton Jones extended an offer. “We have decided to give a one-time opportunity to make up those hours by participating in BHS’s peer tutoring program,” Whitehead wrote in an email in September sent to all eligible seniors.
To participate, volunteers sign up to tutor, then wait in the library for any students in need of support. Afterwards, they record their time spent at the library and the subject they tutored in a log sheet.
Senior Aitana Pedrero-Puertas, who had not obtained her 15 hours junior year but still wanted to join the National Honor Society, saw the email, attended a mandatory meeting with the advisers and other students who needed to make up their service hours, then signed up to volunteer.
When she went to the library to begin tutoring, she ran into an issue.
“I was confused,” she said. “No one really showed up to get tutored.”
In fact, all the volunteers interviewed said that the supply of tutors drastically outweighed the scarce demand for peer tutoring. Yet, following the only remaining path to National Honor Society membership, they continued logging hours, even though nobody was showing up for help.
“They said we’d get credit even if no one showed up to be tutored. They also said it was the only way we could make up our junior year hours; no other type of community service would count,” wrote one volunteer, who requested anonymity, in an email to The Cypress. “We all kind of knew it was BS, but there was no other way for us to get those junior year hours back, so we just rolled with it.”
On the occasion that a student did stop by the library for tutoring, the chances of their needs aligning with a tutor’s expertise were slim, according to multiple volunteers.
As a result, “tutoring” usually meant sitting in the library for an hour, doing homework and waiting. Some volunteers, like Pedrero-Puertas and senior Aarzoo Syeda, brought in their friends and pretended to tutor them.
“We were told that it was the only way to make up hours. I made sure to ask,” Syeda said. “It was a little annoying for me, because I had been volunteering at the 22 Tappan library at the beginning of senior year and had enough hours to cover both requirements for junior and senior year.”
According to Jones, the National Honor Society will likely not allow seniors who did not obtain 15 hours of community service in their junior year the “one-time opportunity” to make up those hours again next year. This would mean that no seniors would be mandated to volunteer for the peer tutoring program to join—they would simply not be allowed to join.
Jones and Whitehead launched the program last year with the goal of supporting students who may feel more at ease seeking academic help from peers rather than adults. In its first year, freshmen performing poorly in their classes were required to attend peer tutoring sessions in the 22 Tappan library, but this year the program shifted to a voluntary model and relocated to the main building.
The advisers then spread the word about the program to teachers, deans and support staff, hoping they would convince students to seek out peer tutoring on their own. However, the advisers still found that the main problem with the program was a lack of knowledge that it exists.
“The issue is, not a lot of people are sending kids,” Jones said. “The program will get bigger if teachers are talking about it.”
As for the tutees’ needs not matching the tutors’ expertise, Jones said that more members of the National Honor Society would need to “prioritize tutoring” so that the program can have “more options in terms of support.”
“We’re going to keep on trying,” Jones said. “We’re gonna add partners and see if we can expand it—as long as students are accessing the tutors and the tutors are getting their hours.”
