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In 2020, Harriette Huang left behind an engineering and tech-related career to become a teacher in East Palo Alto’s Ravenswood City School District, where her goal was to minimize education gaps between Ravenswood schools and schools just outside the city.
But she quickly realized that students might benefit from working with a different kind of teacher, one who might relate to them a little better — their peers.
“High schoolers definitely have a big advantage when connecting with students,” Huang said. “Students don’t have that same trust with adults, the people that bring in punishment and discipline.”
Huang, now a math teacher at Cesar Chavez Ravenswood Middle School, took that philosophy and created an after-school tutoring program connecting her students to peer student tutors in Palo Alto in an effort to increase math and English proficiency levels in the district, and in just a year’s time, she says some students have increased grades by as much as two letters.
According to recent state test scores, a little over 10% of Ravenswood middle school students were proficient in English and about 5% in math.
In the neighboring Palo Alto Unified School District, students were over 80% proficient in English and over 70% in math.
Huang said her dream is that all of her students who want and need tutoring can have easy access to it.
“When I observe my students, I see students who are just waiting to put in hard work.”
Huang started seeking high school volunteers from Palo Alto schools last year and currently has 15 tutors.
Every Saturday, she graded school work, assessed scores, coordinated with the high schoolers and then paired students with tutors for a Sunday night Zoom session. So far, some students have gone from Fs to Cs and even Bs, she said.
But aside from grading, Huang has noticed a difference in student morale.
“I saw much more motivation, much more confidence,” she said.
Jason Luo, rising Gunn High School senior and student-lead for the tutoring group, said students benefit most from one-on-one tutoring.
“Making personal relationships will inspire the students to succeed even more,” he said.
Because he only has one year left in high school, Luo hopes to lay a good foundation for the program to continue by gathering more tutors and planning social events for students to meet tutors.
The East Palo Alto tutoring group mainly recruits volunteers through word of mouth, but Luo recently created a website and social media page to spread the word about their work.
Particularly as math education wanes across the country, Huang said, there is a major local demand for tech workers — where Huang sees opportunity for her students.
“You have more job openings than people qualified,” she said.
But with time, Huang said, she hopes East Palo Alto Tutors can create a butterfly effect of success.
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