Hear From a School District Where Families Have Access to Free Multilingual Tutoring 24/7

Sponsored by Paper

With so much on our plates as parents, it sometimes feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day to help our kids stay on track academically. Moms work more than ever before — often, outside of the home — and kids have very little free time after a full day of school, extra-curricular activities and homework. So when a child is struggling to master certain concepts in the classroom, it’s easy to overlook it until report card time rolls around. 

Then, many parents and students find themselves scrambling for solutions and become quite desperate to get back on track. Some parents have the resources to hire private tutors or send their kids to enrichment programs, but others are left in the dust with little knowledge and few resources. Even kids with access to those resources, sometimes end up falling between the cracks simply because they grow bored without adequate academic challenges.  

Paper’s on a mission to help every student reach their potential by partnering with districts to help make education more equitable. Paper believes every student should have access to the support they need anytime. They understand that each student is unique, from the athlete who crams studying after practice to the student who babysits their siblings afterschool and those who just need a little extra help – Paper is there to help.

Professional tutors are available 24/ 7, to students from grades kindergarten all the way up through high school, ensuring that students learn in a manner aligned with their school district and free of charge to parents and caregivers.

“Parents are not aware that these resources are there. They want to help, but they don’t have time. We need to be more creative about giving them the information,” says Irene Preciado, an administrator and teacher with the Sonoma Valley Unified School District in California, where the students are an almost equal mix of the children of affluent winery owners and their working-class employees. 

“Students with limited resources enter school behind grade level and the gap quickly increases because many enter schools with limited resources. For students with ample resources, they struggle with lack of challenging opportunities to expand their learning and grow their sense of service to others,” she says, noting that exposure is crucial to access. 

Paper is a resource that Preciado’s school district recently turned to for help solving some of these problems for its students, and give them more opportunities to experience academic success, regardless of socio-economic boundaries. Paper provides one-on-one tutoring in all subject areas—and can be used both in school and at home—so that every student in America can have access to the academic support they need to succeed and feel confident in their abilities. Paper works directly with school districts to provide highly effective high-dosage tutoring to children from kindergarten through high school, in various languages, including Spanish.

A study conducted by the Brookings Institute found that high-dosage tutoring can improve student performance by an average 0.37 standard deviations, regardless of academic achievement levels and performance. That means that a student might, for example, move from the 50th percentile to the 66th percentile in the subject they are being tutored in. High-dosage tutoring is defined as three or more tutoring sessions per week for at least 10 weeks, and is proven to be highly effective. But, the cost and time commitments can be challenging for busy parents and students, which is exactly why a company like Paper can be so beneficial.

“It is student-driven and student-initiated. It can capture a specific area of concern or in need of clarification for the student,” she says of the benefits of one-on-one tutoring models like that offered by Paper, noting that the flexibility and availability of Paper services in both English and Spanish are invaluable. Throughout her many years in public education, Preciado notes that she has witnessed parents who want to help their children with their school work, but are unable to due to language barriers. She believes having Spanish-language instruction available through Paper, will help parents, students, and their teachers, work together for the best possible academic outcomes.

Using diverse learning methods — including visual and auditory lessons — Paper tutors can help back up what teachers are doing in the classroom and help students grasp challenging concepts and ideas, on their own time and at no cost to parents. Students can log on at any time and receive live help with any question or problem they have in any content area. They can even bookmark and search those sessions later on to refresh their memories and submit essays for review before turning them in. 

Even better, there is no limit on the number of sessions a student can initiate or the duration of those sessions. Oh, and get this…teachers can log in and actually see what each of their students have been working on with their Paper tutors, which allows them to better understand the needs of their students and continue that learning in a unified way in the classroom.

“Diverse learning methods allow students to experience success and develop an understanding of their own strengths while strengthening their areas of growth or finding different approaches to find the same desired results,” says Preciado, whose district began using Paper in early 2022. 

Check with your child’s school or district today, to find out how to get your child academic support and one-on-one tutoring from Paper tutors. If your school district is not yet using Paper, they can get set up in no time. You can find materials to help you advocate for the implementation of Paper at your child’s school on the Paper website here.