Homework Club takes place during the school year on Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:00 to 5:00 at the Dream House. There is a pyramid effect here:
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Everyone really works. The high school supervisors watch over the middle school students who are tutoring the elementary school students from 3:00-4:00. Then the high school buddies help with middle school buddies’ homework from 4:00-5:00. We recruit our staff with posters, word of mouth and our website. Even though the Youth Dreamers is a place for youth we had to fill out applications, be interviewed by our peers and go through the process of waiting to hear if we had a job. This year, 45 middle and high school students were hired and 25 elementary school students were served. To recruit the elementary school members we attended Back to School Night at the beginning of the year and we asked teachers to circulate our flyers and registration. At the beginning all youth staff have training sessions in which they learn about a typical day in Homework Club, how the “yikes!!!” page works, rules and expectations, how to mentor younger children, etc. We also had orientation “Meet and Greet” at the beginning of the program for the staff to meet the elementary school students.
Description by Pamela Jackson, 7th grade staff
A Typical day in Homework Club….The first thing that happens is the middle school buddies arrive at the Dream House and look for their elementary school buddies (who were picked up from school by select middle school staff). Then everyone gets to work and goes to their rooms and starts on homework. Then around 3:30 p.m. if a buddy is done with homework they are now able to get on the computer or play an educational game with their buddy. At 3:45 it’s snack-time and they go and get a snack before they leave. Finally at 4:00 the little buddies leave and go home. After they leave the middle school buddies have a staff meeting where they reflect on the day, problem solve and have mini trainings. Around 4:30 the middle school students leave the meeting and start on their homework with help from local high school students.
When it’s around the holidays we have an event or party about that holiday to teach the buddies about that holiday in a fun way. When birthdays come around we celebrate them at the end of the month and they all receive a cupcake. Another special part of the program is the sticker chart. Every day the buddies work hard to receive stickers for completing homework and having good behavior. Then at the end of the month the person with the most amount of stickers receives a prize. The most amount of stickers that can be earned in a day is 3 but if someone does something outstanding they are able to receive 4 stickers for that day. Our final big event for the year is Funfest. This is a block party every year on Global Youth Service Day. This event is held to bring the community together so that everybody can have fun and enjoy time with each other.
Parents of elementary school buddies say this program helps their children achieve their goals and encourages them to try their best in school. This program impacts the members in the community in many ways but the main impact would have to be giving the community members a safe place to come and to get the youth off of the street and to get them to do homework and work hard in school. Employees are able to have a place to earn money and help another student younger than them with homework and projects. This impacts both schools by having a place for students to do their work which over time can help the schools get higher grades on standardized tests which can help boost ratings for the school.
Evaluation by Aaron Harding, 8th grade staff
This year, as it is every year, students have to sign in daily. Out of 43 days of Homework Club the average student came 33 days. And we had 14 kids that came everyday throughout of the whole year. Only 7 kids dropped out of the program because of moving or family issues. Only two dropped out because they didn’t want to come anymore.
Each day, both staff and buddies must do evaluations to show how well they did during the session. When we averaged out these evaluations at the end of the year, we found that the elementary students rated their middle school tutors a 4.9 out of 5 for how much they helped. These outcomes are great and better than ever. The middle school staff tutors also have to evaluate the elementary school students on their performance throughout the day. The average rating of how well the elementary school buddy did was 4.9 out of 5. All of our standards are met and passed with these evaluations.
The end of the year evaluations show how much kids liked Homework Club and how much it helped them with their homework and their academic skills. Of the thirteen students surveyed, twelve kids said that Homework Club helped a lot with their homework. Eight kids said they enjoy Homework Club a lot and four stated some. All of the kids surveyed said Homework Club improved their grades greatly and that they would come back next year. The kids said they mostly enjoyed the scavenger hunts during testing, having help with homework, using the computers, art classes, and having fun.
Evaluations were also done for the middle school staff and how they felt about the whole year. Out of thirteen middle school staff surveyed, eight said they loved being a tutor, four said they liked it and one said it was OK. One student commented, “It was an amazing experience!” Another middle school staff comment was, “Homework Club is lots of fun!” The majority of the staff surveyed thought that the trainings were helpful. All staff also felt that their growth in the following categories was excellent or very good: listening, negotiating, creativity, responsibility, professionalism, getting along well with others, and teaching. All but two staff members earned a score of 82% or above on all of their monthly evaluations. All but four shared that they would participate next year. Some middle school staff said that the best part of Homework Club was teaching their buddy new things they never knew.
Reflections by Lawrence Wakefield, 8th grade staff
At the end of the year, staff came together to process the year. We brainstormed what worked, what didn’t work, and some ideas for next year. We thought that our daily reflections during our staff meetings worked because we talked about the day and what could be changed for the next work day. We also liked the structure of the day and how we only had buddy per person. We decided that supply baggies with sharpeners, pencils and coloring material worked because then the buddies weren’t required to bring their own supplies. We also liked having floaters because they made sure everything was going smoothly and that there were no problems. We also had snacks and designated water bottles for the staff which helped with not buying so much juice. Another thing that worked is we had people pick up their assigned kids to assure that the kids came to Homework Club. We also a sticker chart which kept track of the kid’s behavior and homework completion and we also had programs after Homework Club for the little kids such as Artsy April. Some other things that worked were things like the YIKES?!? page which is if your buddy consistently makes bad choices or does something extremely disruptive, they get written up on our YIKES!! sheet. This helps us keep track of what we are doing to make sure buddies are safe and successful. There are consequences for getting different numbers of YIKES. Something else that we think worked was the Meet and Greet in the beginning because it gave you a chance to meet your buddy.
However, although Homework Club was great there were a few things that didn’t work. These things would include people not showing up on time or even at all. Also people who weren’t using the YIKES?! page correctly or effectively. Another thing that didn’t work was people fussing and the high school buddies having too many middle school buddies. Something else that was decided to have not worked was having a split check between hours and money and the little buddies being distracted by the computers. We also decided that the location of the snack bin didn’t work because people went back and took extra snacks without paying for them.
Looking back at all the things that did work and what didn’t work, we decided to come up with some ideas for next year. We thought that next year we could have new rewards and consequences. We also decided that we could have better prizes for sticker chart and at the end of the month we would make sure that we had one boy winner and one girl winner. For the middle school/high school tutoring sessions, we thought that next year all the 6th graders would be tutored in one room, the 7th graders in a different room, and the 8th graders in a third. We also decided that the middle school buddies should have a sticker chart, too. Last but not least we decided that there would be a surprise probation period once a month to catch those employees who slip up or aren’t serious about their jobs.
Overall, we are proud of how well Homework Club went this year-our FIRST year in the Dream House!
THANKS TO ABBOTSTON ELEMENTARY AND OUR GENEROUS FUNDERS FOR MAKING THIS YEAR POSSIBLE