Interview: Wayzata Public Schools' Virtual Volunteer Program

Julie Menk, Adult Enrichment and Volunteer Specialist at Wayzata Public Schools, met with me in February 2021 to discuss their new strategy to utilize volunteers in their student support program and how Wayzata Public Schools has risen to meet the challenges of the pandemic.

-Rose Maney, Youth Virtual Tutoring Initiative Literacy Leader

How many students are you reaching with virtual learning?

Our volunteer program was just approved at the start of February 2021, and we’ll start at the end of February. We will not have any in-person opportunities most likely for the rest of the school year and the summer.

There are 150 volunteers district-wide on my list, and most of them volunteered last year. I have many volunteers who are ready and willing to help right now, but we haven’t had the capacity to utilize volunteers in any way until now. The word is getting out and our goal is to first collect requests from teachers to find out what kind of volunteer roles they are in need of, and then fill those requests with our current list of volunteers. I have many, many volunteers ready and waiting to get involved, so it's very exciting. I anticipate being able to fill every single need that comes up.

What is the age range of your volunteers?

Most of our volunteers are above retirement age, so 65 and up. The two that are starting next week are both retired and probably in their 70s. We do have a few parents as well that are involved in the literacy program.

In terms of taking requests and filling those roles, what system do you use?

We only take requests from teachers, and they use Google Forms to fill out the specifics. Then, I manage the requests through Google Sheets. I usually separate them out and organize it to cover our nine elementary schools. We use the same system for our volunteers as they sign up using Google Forms.

How did the teachers figure out what their needs are and when do the parents come into this? Are there any consent forms or anything they need to sign to get tutoring?

Right now our setup with elementary school students is full-time in-person learning with the option of full-time distance choice learning. If a student is meeting with the volunteer and the student is in our school, the teacher's responsibility is to simply notify the parents and make them aware of volunteers working with our classroom or connecting with the child on Zoom. The teacher always oversees it; they have to invite the volunteer to their classroom and then put them in a breakout room so at any time they can observe what's happening.

What's the process for students who are in your virtual learning program?

If a child is in the distance choice program and learning from home, there is a waiver form for the parent or guardian. And someone needs to be with the child while they're online with their tutor, so we have a form saying that there will be an adult in the vicinity.

Likewise, the teacher will also be able to pop into the breakout room so if it's at home the teacher can pop into the breakout room at any time.

Do you do background checks for all the volunteers?

We do background checks for all the volunteers. Since this is a new program they all need to go through a volunteer orientation.

How are you getting technology to the volunteers? Do you have any iPads or laptops that you are giving out?

That’s a great thought for me to consider as we grow the program. The volunteers all use their own computers.

What kind of training do you offer? Are you offering any special training for them to learn the technology or remote tutoring in general? It’s a whole different skill set.

I do have a tutorial on the basics of using Zoom. Within the community we have somebody who does a more formal Zoom training, if somebody really needed to know more technology than myself. We also have a great tech department here.

I will say a lot of our volunteers are very active. They lead active lives where they are well connected. Most of them are very familiar with Zoom already.

We don’t have a training currently set up in regards to engaging with students virtually or how best to work with students online and how it could differ from in-person. That is something that I would love to see. I could definitely pull some resources together.

How long did it take you to figure out what structure you needed for enrichment or homework help?

Last fall [2020] I had a couple focus groups, inviting teachers, principals, staff such as literacy specialists and teachers on special assignments to come and share what's different this year and how we can best utilize volunteers. And what came out of it was a lot of what we expected—a need for literacy support, because that's what we’ve provided for many years.

But, the volunteer program is specifically the one-to-one and small group literacy support, which typically has one volunteer assigned to read with the same student for 30 minutes once a week.

Back when I held these focus groups it was 100 percent distance learning, so the students were all learning at home. When I first wrote the proposal it was geared towards distance learning or the hybrid model.

What kind of feedback were you getting, and how did it impact the direction of your program?

We heard a lot about parents getting burnt out from just that weekly check-in to make sure students were turning in the assignments. One request was to leave it open-ended. For instance, a teacher might need somebody to meet with a student once a week and check how they’re doing and be their cheerleader not just academically, but also socially and emotionally. That’s why we didn’t limit the program to just literacy or math.

The goal is to meet each student's needs and meet them where they’re at. If that is just checking in for 20 minutes once a week, we can make that happen. If the goal is listening to them read their chapter book a couple times a week, we can make that happen, too.

Is it going to be flexible for students who have more needs?

That is the beauty of virtual learning. In the past, our volunteers would drive to the school. They would be there for 20 to 30 minutes with the student and then they would head out. Now it is a little bit easier to squeeze in 30 minutes during the week. So if the teacher needed support five days a week with a student, I have volunteers who would be willing and able to do that.

Is all the online tutoring going to be through Zoom?

We don’t use Google Classroom, but we use Google Forms and Google Sheets. All tutoring is done on Zoom as far as classroom instruction and volunteering.

What do they use for reading materials? Are there any online reading materials for the kids who can’t go to the library or are they going to use what books they have at home?

The families come at least once a week and pick up their materials at the school building. We also have ways to support those who may have barriers to transportation or getting there during the school day when the building is open.

The volunteers are also able to pick up reading materials.

For example, the students who are starting in the program next week are in the school building. The teacher will be able to easily get them the resources. The volunteers went yesterday and picked up the same books that the students will be using.

How long do you think it's going to take to go from two volunteers to all 150 volunteers?

I would love to place all 150. In a typical year it takes me about four weeks, as I do everything, from communication with the teachers to the direct communication with the volunteers. All the roles won’t be identical as they were in the past. I’m going to be strategic on which volunteers I choose to work with which students.

You’re going to be matching your volunteers a little bit off of personality. Is that one of the reasons you are not taking new volunteers? Or is it just the sheer scale of this project?

There are a few reasons. One of them is confidentiality and privacy. It's comforting to know who our volunteers are, as they are meeting with students online. And students potentially would be coming from their own home, which requires a lot of privacy.

The second reason is budget. Background checks are not free; they run about 10 dollars each.

If you didn’t have very many requests through the teachers, would you ever consider opening it up so that parents could request homework help and socialization?

We could, however, the teacher would still need to be involved, because we need a licensed teacher to run each Zoom meeting and have the ability to observe at any time. In the past a volunteer would come in and read together with a student, typically in the hallway, in the media center or in a conference room with the door open, so that a staff member or teacher could pop in the hallway and check in at any time. It’s the same idea that any time a teacher needs to check in, they need to have that ability on Zoom.