YouthCares is currently hiring -- see below.

Since 2000, YouthCares has been providing after school help to students at Newcomer High School through its peer tutoring program, Partners in Learning. Each semester, a group of high school students is trained in facilitation, leadership, tutoring and teaching skills. These youth then provide homework help, survival English lessons and cultural orientation to recently arrived immigrant students at Newcomer High School.

>>> Peer Tutors

Under Partners’ peer tutoring model, youth of the same age group as the students—14 to 18—provide all of the homework help and facilitate all of the lessons in the program. Each semester, a new group of tutors is recruited and trained. After a three-day program orientation focusing on tutoring, teaching, facilitation and classroom management skills, tutors continue to receive weekly trainings on leadership, professionalism, teamwork, public speaking, and all of the subject areas about which they are expected to teach the Newcomer students. The Program Coordinator develops the lessons, and peer tutors learn the material so that they can teach it to the Newcomer students in small groups.

Through their work at Partners in Learning, peer tutors learn leadership, cross-cultural and social skills, gain job experience and give back to their communities. The work is fun, and tutors and students often keep in touch long after their time together in the program is over. Partners in Learning offers both paid and volunteer positions, and volunteers can earn community service credits for high school graduation.

Most of the youth who work for Partners in Learning are from immigrant backgrounds themselves. Having learned English and made a successful transition to life in the United States, they want to help newly arrived students through the same struggles that they once faced. Of course, being an immigrant and being bi- or multilingual are not requirements for a job at Partners in Learning. Any youth who are passionate about helping recent immigrants adjust to life in their new home are encouraged to apply. It is especially important that peer tutors be youth who respect diversity and want to work with students of all backgrounds and not only of their own ethnicity, language or national origin.

>>> Newcomer Students

Newcomer High is a transitional public school in the San Francisco Unified School District. High school aged students who immigrate with little or no English proficiency are placed there for an average of one year to learn English before transferring to a traditional high school to finish their diploma. While learning English is the focus at Newcomer, students also take one hour per day each of math and world history. For Spanish and Chinese speakers, these courses are offered in their native languages, and for other students they are offered in sheltered English.

Partners in Learning provides an hour per day of one-on-one homework help for Newcomer students, followed by an hour-long lesson. Teenagers immigrating to the United States need to figure out a great many things very quickly, and in its lessons Partners in Learning strives to fill in the gaps that their school day education leaves. While the English classes at Newcomer focus on building grammar and writing ability, Partners provides a safe environment for them to build their conversational skills and push their ability to communicate with what English they have.

In immigrant families, teenagers often become the most proficient English speaker and are called upon to deal with very adult issues. In recognition of this, Partners in Learning’s interactive curriculum also teaches students to navigate the health care system, the job market, the housing market, the college application process, and more. Students learn their constitutional rights, tenants’ rights and the American democratic system. Reading maps, asking for directions, and searching online are all among the skills that Partners students learn. Most recently, Partners in Learning has started a vegetable garden and is teaching about food, nutrition and science while allowing students from agricultural backgrounds an opportunity to share their knowledge.

Since many Newcomer students are afraid to speak English, and since some classes are divided into native language groups, students at the high school tend to segregate themselves. Of the three after school programs at Newcomer, Partners in Learning is the only one open to students of all languages and ethnicities, and alongside the other goals of the program, Partners also strives to teach students to open up to each other and gain intercultural understanding.

>>> Program Coordinator

Please click here to learn more about the Program Coordinator or click here to get in touch.

>>> JOB OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUTH!!!

Partners in Learning is hiring paid and volunteer peer tutors for the Fall 2008 cycle. At Partners in Learning, you have the opportunity to gain work experience and job skills, build your leadership, and meet people from around the world. Click here to apply for Fall 2008.