From Tutor Leslie Johnson: I have been working with Alejandra, age 9, since March. She is a really smart, fun, inquisitive girl- and one of the friendliest kids I have ever met! She is always eager and ready to start our tutoring sessions each Friday.

Over the past few months, Alejandra and I have worked on her Math and Reading skills, and have reviewed a couple of the standardized tests she has been required to take in class. We have covered long division, multiplication, the metric system, cardinal directions, maps, and some of the major tenets of narrative analysis She has made great progress in all of these areas, and her grades at the end of the school year reflected this progress.

This summer, Alejandra and I have been starting each session with a multiplication flashcard game. She gets faster and better each session; I am sure she practices with the cards during the week. After about 10 minutes of the flashcard game, we move on to the major theme of the summer: Egypt. We have been reading a long novel called "The Egypt Game" by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. It is an excellent story about three friends who start a secret club for all things Ancient Egypt. It was one of my favorite books when I was Alejandra's age, and hope it will become one of hers, too! We have been supplementing our reading with discussions and non-fiction readings about the Nile, the Pyramids, Hieroglyphs, the Rosetta Stone, and mummies. It has proven to be a very fun summer, and Alejandra is just as motivated to learn in and contribute to the tutoring sessions as she was during the school year.

As a tutor with School on Wheels for the last 3 years, I have immensely enjoyed working with my students. I can say without hesitation that my session with Alejandra is among the highlights of my week. When our sessions end, I spend a lot of time planning for the next week, and thinking about how best to approach the material, given her individual learning style. Before signing on to volunteer with School on Wheels, I did a lot of research into local organizations, searching for one that would be a good fit. I was and continue to be pleased with the fact that School on Wheels puts the children served by their organization before any other agenda. I have been so impressed with the care and dedication of the staff and other tutors I have met, and I am a big cheerleader for the organization in my immediate community of peers and associates. I look forward to many more successful years as a School on Wheels tutor.

Thank you to those wonderful tutors who brought ten of our students on our suggested college campus tours. All of them were a huge success. Both tutors and students had a lot of fun and the tours gave the students a great insight into what college is like and how achievable it is for them. Kinship tutors Seema, Sarah, Ellen and Beth took Cheyenne and Malia to UCLA. Photo: The Kinship Girls at UCLA

From Regional Coordinator, Natasha Bayus:August’s tutor of the month is Sandra Smith. I tried to nominate Sandra a few months ago, but she felt like she wasn’t quite making the impact she had hoped with her students. Sandra started in April 2009, first at a shelter called Hamilton Court in Glendale. Gilbert, her more recent student there, struggled both academically and behaviorally. Despite Gilbert’s obstacles, Sandra did so much to keep him encouraged and also advocated for him after a disciplinary issue at his school. Another student of Sandra’s, Lashawnda, is part of the LA Youth Network Apartment Program in Hollywood. Together they spent countless working on CAHSEE prep. Sandra took Lashawnda to the Dodgers Game a few months ago which was a great experience for both of them. Most recently, I asked Sandra to do some tutoring with Brittany, a teen at a girls’ foster home in Pasadena. Due to a lack of communication from the staff, Brittany was quite surprised to have a tutor coming at their first session. After a few minutes of protesting and some colorful language, Sandra convinced Brittany they could sit down together and together could work through her homework. I think sometimes it’s easier to tell the stories of the tutors who have students running up to hug them as they enter the shelter each week. It’s true this does happen, but many of the students we work with are difficult and don’t turn into an instant success story. Sandra is one of the tutors who accepts the challenges inherent in tutoring homeless students, and sets high expectations because she knows how important education is to changing the students’ futures. I can’t think of a better person to be tutor of the month.