Participant Roles - Business

Once a business determines that there are schools in the community which would like to participate in a tutoring partnership, the business should:

• Identify a coordinator who will coordinate tutoring-related activities within the business. This person should:

  • Accept and coordinate requests for tutors from area schools.

  • Collect the list of volunteers and pass it on to the school. This should include some means to contact the volunteer (phone number, e-mail address) and the subject(s) in which the volunteer is willing to help. We believe it works best if the school can contact volunteers directly to set up potential tutoring arrangements.

    Collecting a list of volunteers may be very informal in a small business or may be very structured in a larger business. At IBM we set up an internal web site where people could indicate their willingness to help and preferences for location and subject matter.

    It's important to keep the volunteer list up to date. We suggest starting over with a new volunteer list each year. At the beginning of the year send out a notice to all potential volunteer letting them know how to sign up. Consider sending a specific invitation to volunteers from the previous year encouraging them to sign up again.

    In some cases there have been problems with school coordinators passing out lists of volunteers, resulting in volunteers getting calls directly from parents demanding tutoring for their children. Some businesses have chosen to do the matching of volunteers to requests to avoid these problems. In any case, it is important to make sure that both sides of the school/business partnership are clear on their respective reponsibilities and expectations.

• Establish and communicate policies regarding tutoring, including when it is allowed, who approves it, whether it is on company or personal time, etc.

• Commit to the program for some period of time. This includes providing appropriate support for employees who are volunteering to tutor.

While we describe the tutoring relationship as one between a business and a school, it could involve other community organizations as well.