Volunteer tutors bring personal touch to community’s kids.
By: Linda Arntzenius
To a child, the undivided attention of an adult has a special quality. Someone is willing to give that most valuable of commodities time.
That’s the premise underlying College Bound, the Princeton-based nonprofit that helps children achieve academic excellence. Volunteers provide one-on-one tutoring in math, language arts or other academic subjects. At least that’s what the brochure says. In reality, there’s much more to it.
"When an individual tutor is presented with a real child, even for as little as one-and-a-half hours a week, something special happens," says program founder Toby Peterson.
T. Sarah Peterson, author of "Acquired Taste: The French Origins of Modern Cooking" (known affectionately as Toby) started College Bound with one child and one tutor: herself. Now the program has some 40 tutors and has served 80 children since 1998.
Ann Marie Grocholski, executive director of Princeton Young Achievers, regards the program so highly that she refers students to it for the extra boost College Bound volunteers provide.
"The program is unique because it offers children an exceptional opportunity to form a relationship with a caring adult who can share enriching life experiences. That takes commitment on the part of the adult. College Bound tutors are special people," Ms. Grocholski says.
Parents Ashanté Thompson and Tim Best agree. Their children, Tajah, 8; Ahmad, 10, and Brandi, 12, have benefited from the program.
An exemplary student at Community Park School, Brandi has won a scholarship to The Hun School. Last month, fifth-grader Ahmad, tutored in mathematics for almost three years by retired computer software engineer Ted Peck, received two College Bound awards for excellence: in mathematics, from William Massey, professor of operations research at Princeton University’s School of Engineering, and in English, from Paul Muldoon, the internationally distinguished poet who is professor of poetry at Princeton University. Ahmad’s poem was a winner of a statewide poetry contest.
With one-on-one tutoring, it’s not surprising that bonding occurs between tutors, children and their families. Kathryn Howard and Ashanté Thompson experience the warm relationship that is perhaps key to the program’s success.
A former magazine writer, editor and yoga instructor, Ms. Howard got to know Ashanté while tutoring her daughter, Tajah. Once-a- week reading and writing soon expanded to include yoga and nutrition. On Tajah’s birthday, Kathryn hosted a picnic at her home for Tajah’s family.
This kind of close community connection is exactly what program founder Toby Peterson seeks to foster. The Best children are among CollegeBound’s many successes. Ms. Howard is quick also to commend the children’s third-grade teacher and mentor, Joyce Robinson at Community Park School.
Responding to mid-’90s reports showing a disproportionate number of minority children in special education classes, Toby Peterson felt that it was time to step up to the plate. She believed that one-on-one tutoring could help enormously. Her experience teaching English at Hudson County Community College in Jersey City and at Martin Luther King High School in New York convinced her that she could make a difference. Although located in mid-town Manhattan, much of MLK’s student body lives in The Bronx and Harlem.
"I felt I was able to make a difference there and when I heard that low-income children, mostly African-American and Latino children, were not doing well in Princeton schools, I realized that I could do something right here in Princeton," says Ms. Peterson.
As a single mother, Teckla McKie appreciates the support of College Bound. Her son, Stanley, a fourth-grader at Community Park School, was not interested in reading until his College Bound tutor introduced him to Harry Potter and "The Lord of the Rings."
"Now he is motivated and enjoys reading. Homework is so much easier. No more yelling!" says Ms. McKie.
"In Princeton, we have resources that other places lack. I take advantage of these whenever I can," says the diminutive Ms. Peterson. Originally from Chicago, she is not shy about using her connection with Princeton University to bring children into contact with highly accomplished professionals.
Her husband, Willard Peterson, professor in the Department of East Asian Studies, signed on as a math tutor. Pultizer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison supported the program by donating her fee from a reading at Nassau Presbyterian Church. Paul Muldoon and students in the Princeton University Creative Writing Program got involved, as did Gisella Kam, a librarian at Firestone Library.
An English major with a teaching certificate, Ms. Kam is fluent in Spanish and keen to tutor Hispanic children. She values the program’s non-rigidity, allowing her to tutor a 19 year-old from Guatemala and, this summer, siblings age 6 and 8 in phonics and reading.
Volunteers such as local builder Mark Bergman, French scientist Claude Beigel, retired electronics engineer Eugene McCray, and political science graduate student Jennifer Duylx from Haiti, attest to this.
On Saturdays at the West Windsor library, Mohammedi Kanpurwala, a software engineer with Comverse Technology since coming to the United States from India in 1981, coaches a 14-year-old Korean girl in Algebra II. "As an immigrant, I want to give something back to the community that has given me so much," he says.
In addition to homework, tutors often assign independent work. They meet in their homes or the Princeton Public Library where, every Thursday, you will find retired elementary-school teacher and "empty nester" Roslyn Dayan with 10 year-old Melonie Kornegay poring over a book. A fourth-grader at Community Park School, Melonie’s ambition is to be a librarian.
"Part of College Bound’s job is to boost confidence, expand ambitions and expectations," says Ms. Peterson. "Our children are definitely not statistics or figures on the page of a report," she says.
For more information or to make a tax-deductible contribution to College Bound’s Student Fund, write to College Bound, 80 Murray Place, Princeton, NJ 08540, or call Toby Peterson at (609) 921-2826.