Martinsville High School honor students provide volunteer tutoring services

MARTINSVILLE — Over the past few months, Martinsville High School has noticed an increased need for tutoring services for their students, and thanks to the National Honor Society (NHS), a solution has emerged.

Brandy Shumaker, the advisor for the high school's NHS chapter and an English teacher at the high school, has helped create a program where honor society students can fill required volunteer hours by tutoring their peers during school hours.

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"We have the teachers fill out a form where they recommend students in any grade level or any subject," Shumaker said. "Maybe [they] are struggling with content, or maybe they have missing assignments... maybe they've been in quarantine. We're trying to bridge the gap between that."

The program was initially implemented a few years prior during Artie Period, or homeroom. Due to Covid and scheduling changes, the program was hindered until this year.

"We're just now getting it off the ground," Shumaker added. "It's a little different, we are doing it a little more often because students have been behind since so many of them have been contact traced."

Shumaker said there were hopes to expand the program and continue it well into the future.

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"I'd like to get the program to the point where the actual students can also request to be tutored," Shumaker noted. "At this point we just have way too many students needing tutored."

Currently, approximately forty NHS students will be participating in the program and is available to all high school students. Tutoring is offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the school day.

"If we keep building this up, maybe we can offer it at different times," Shumaker said. "The amount of kids that are on the list already... it takes weeks just to get them in."

Shumaker added Covid and quarantine protocols had contributed to some of the struggles students faced.

"They just do not cope well when they are quarantined," Shumaker said. "They really struggle to get motivation

For more information, contact Brandy Shumaker at brandy.shumaker@msdmartinsville.org.

Contact Reporter-Times reporter Grace Phillips at gphillips@reporter-times.com or at 765-346-4815

This article originally appeared on The Reporter Times: Tutoring service volunteers honor students at Martinsville High School