To receive the extra help they need in order to succeed in their studies, students often visit the tutoring programs at Arcadia High School (AHS). But one invaluable resource that has been underutilized is the Peer Tutoring program at the AHS library. This year, the Peer Tutoring program began on Sept. 19 and is now open to all students. Their team of high-quality tutors is now working every day after school to ensure every student can master the content they learn in class, whether that be English, math, science, or a world language class.

As Senior Outreach Director Shirlyn Huang explained, Peer Tutoring is a “free organization” with no fees required for the students. It is also more accessible than similar organizations, as students can come “every single day of the week . . . whenever they want to.”

Another aspect of the program that makes it unique in the AHS community is its excellent Outreach Program, which serves as a direct “integration of both the middle schools and the high school” where “freshmen and sophomores help out the middle schoolers so that they’re able to transition smoothly into the high school tutoring.” 

In other words, the Outreach Program contributes to not only the AHS community but also the entire Arcadia community by connecting the middle schools with AHS to ensure that middle school students will have a smooth transition when they enter this completely new community.

So how exactly does Peer Tutoring search through its applicants and assemble its skilled team of tutors? 

Senior Clayton Ma, the Human Resources Manager for the program, explained that the applicants first had to complete a written application with questions concerning “their GPA, the subjects they are currently taking, what subjects have they taken in the past, what subjects can they tutor, what times are they available, etc.” 

After the officer team finishes the review of the initial applications, a second round of in-person interviews filters through the remaining candidates.

 During the interview, a panel of officers will ask the potential tutors personality questions and ask them to “treat [the officers] as students and teach them a question they don’t know.” Afterwards, the officer team “will discuss the interviews and wrap up a consensus as to who will get to become a tutor in the coming semester.”

To make the application process clearer, Huang and Ma listed three traits they would love to see in every tutor. 

For Ma, the answer was “dedication, cooperativeness, and hard work.” A dedicated tutor, in his view, is one who “helps as many students as possible who are struggling with [their] subjects.” Cooperativeness, he explained, was due to Peer Tutoring being a “collaborative environment that requires collaboration from both the tutors and tutees” in order to succeed. And finally, hard work from the tutors allows “our struggling students to actually get the high-quality help they deserve.”

Compared to Ma, Huang’s answer was “expertise, organization, and responsibility.” Expertise, she explained, was necessary for every tutor because “obviously, [the tutors] have to be able to actually solve the questions posed by students to be able to help them.” Organization is necessary for the tutors, as they must fulfill the requirement of tutors to come to the library “at least once a week.” And if they cannot come on a day they initially agreed to, they “have to excuse themselves by emailing [Ma] before 9 p.m. the day before.” Responsibility, Huang elaborated, meant the tutors had to show responsibility for their students by having “under three unexcused absences and seven hours of tutoring every single semester.”

Regarding its future, Peer Tutoring is focused on expanding its services to more students by connecting with more schools, recruiting more tutors who can help, and spreading awareness of the organization further. The Outreach Team has been discussing expanding Peer Tutoring to “Foothills Middle School as well as Dana Middle School.” This will not only ensure that students from those schools will have a smoother transition between middle and high school, but will also increase the interconnectedness of the Arcadia community as a whole.

Regarding the current number of experienced tutors, Ma commented that due to the large number of senior tutors graduating from AHS next year, Peer Tutoring is now expanding its efforts to search for more “underclassmen tutors who can stay in the program until hopefully their graduation.”

Huang added that a big change made to the program this year was the lowering of the GPA requirement for tutors. Previously, the cutoff point was 3.8 GPA. But this year, as she recalled, the officer team allowed a candidate with “a 3.63 GPA to pass the first round [of applications] and get into an interview round where [the team] asked [the candidate] a question, and [the candidate] was able to solve it quite perfectly.” The officer team considered “[this candidate] for quite a while, but [the team] eventually decided to allow this tutor to be in this program.”

Concerning the GPA situation, senior Caley Chan who is the Peer Tutoring President for this year, stated that “this year, at least for [her], [she wants] to look past GPA” and have it play a lesser role during the application process.

Ma added to Chan’s goal, responding that this year, “thoughtfulness” was what the team looked for in the applicant’s written responses. Chan cited that as a result of these changes, “a higher percent of the written applications were offered an interview.” In other words, Peer Tutoring is now making its requirements more flexible for potential applicants.

No doubt, with more attention drawn towards the Peer Tutoring program, the officer team will fulfill their goals of promoting interconnectivity of the AHS and the Arcadia community, recruiting more skilled underclassmen tutors, and helping more students who need help in their academic careers.

Photo by Richard Dai