The San Francisco Education Fund’s K-12 Tutoring & Classroom Support Program engages community volunteers to actively build relationships with students, improving their academic skills and resiliency. Volunteers fill a variety of roles in K-12 classrooms across San Francisco public schools, and serve as powerful role models who help students know they have a personal champion and who help them build a deeper connection with their education.
This program started 60 years ago, when Gretchen de Baubigny visited a classroom in San Francisco’s Western Addition to read aloud to students. Soon after, a student asked her when she would be back. Gretchen saw an opportunity to engage the San Francisco community in our public schools, to provide the one-on-one attention students need to excel.
Tutors and Classroom Assistants will:
Final Training Dates:
At the beginning of each school year, we email every teacher in the school district to ask if they’d like a volunteer and, if so, to describe the type of help they need. We compile those responses into a spreadsheet from which newly-cleared volunteers select the opportunity they prefer. If a volunteer wants to help at a school from which we don’t have a teacher request, they can contact that school directly, with the assistance of an Education Fund Coordinator. So, the options are limitless. You can potentially volunteer in any grade level, at any school, and in any subject matter area. We strongly encourage interested volunteers to select one of the Ed Fund’s priority schools. Learn more about priority schools here.
You will attend a two-hour online training session. An Ed Fund volunteer coordinator will work with you to select a volunteer opportunity and will put you in touch with the teacher. Once you’ve been placed in a classroom, you may contact that same coordinator whenever you have any questions or concerns. The coordinator will check in with you proactively as well.
Please contact Tom Laursen, Senior Coordinator for Volunteer Engagement, at volunteer@sfedfund.org or (628) 345-2604.
Want to become a tutor or classroom assistant in the 2024-25 school year?
Fill out the tutor and general classroom volunteer application
Please visit https://www.mindfulartssf.org for updates.
With just one hour a week, you can bring mindfulness and social-emotional learning to San Francisco public school classrooms. Learning to understand emotions and how to manage them with skill is one of the most important lessons any human being can learn. Based on Andrew J. Nance’s “Mindful Arts in the Classroom” curriculum, volunteers will teach elementary school students various techniques to help them cultivate the skill of present-moment awareness.
Final Training Date:
You will lead weekly 20-25 minute mindfulness sessions for students in any of the following grades: transitional kindergarten, kindergarten, first grade, second grade or third grade. Using the “Mindful Arts in the Classroom” curriculum, you will engage students through books, art activities, theater games, and mindfulness exercises.
Mindful Arts San Francisco has been teaching mindfulness skills to San Francisco’s public elementary school students since 2014. Participating schools vary from year to year but in that time we have worked with the following schools: Alvarado Elementary, Bessie Carmichael Elementary, Bret Harte Elementary, Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 School, William Cobb Elementary, Commodore Sloat Elementary, Charles Drew Academy, Creative Arts Charter School, Francis Scott Key Elementary, Gordon J Lau Elementary, Glen Park Elementary, Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, Jean Parker Elementary, Jefferson Elementary, Junipero Serra Elementary, Leonard Flynn Elementary, Marshall Elementary, George Moscone Elementary, John Muir Elementary, Rosa Parks Elementary, Sanchez Elementary, Sherman Elementary, and Tenderloin Community School.
We strongly encourage interested mindfulness volunteers to select one of the Ed Fund’s priority schools. Learn more about priority schools here.
You will receive:
Please contact Tom Laursen, Senior Coordinator for Volunteer Engagement, at volunteer@sfedfund.org or (628) 345-2604.
Want to become a mindfulness volunteer in the 2024-25 school year?
Research shows that students who participate in school-based mentoring programs are absent less often, show improved academic performance, and are more likely to attend college. Mentoring is a proven strategy to help students build resiliency and other important life skills.
In contrast to tutoring, mentoring is a non-academic intervention with a student. The San Francisco Education Fund partners with the San Francisco Unified School District’s Mentoring for Success Program to engage community volunteers as mentors for public school students. A volunteer mentor will meet with their student one hour a week on school grounds. Learn more here.
Final Mentor Training Date:
You will meet with your student on school grounds and engage in any safe, school-approved activity, or just talk if that’s what your mentee prefers. You are an additional, caring adult and role model in that student’s life and are building a relationship of trust.
A select number of San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) schools participate in the Mentoring for Success (MFS) program each year and those schools can vary from one year to the next. There are opportunities to mentor a student in any grade, elementary through high school, if you are flexible in terms of location. Check out MFS’s 2022-23 participating schools here.
We strongly encourage interested volunteers to select one of the Ed Fund’s participating priority schools. Learn more about priority schools here.
Once you’ve submitted a volunteer application, you will be contacted by the Ed Fund’s volunteer program coordinator for a screening interview. If you are selected for the program, you will attend a three-hour online training class. Once you’ve been cleared to volunteer (background check/TB risk assessment, etc.), you will work with the volunteer program coordinator to select a school from the list of participating schools. The coordinator will contact the social worker at that school to see if they have a student for whom you would be a good match. If so, they will connect you with the school social worker, who will arrange your first meeting with the student.
This is an opt-in program for students. All students participating in the program will have a signed permission letter from their parent to participate in the program.
Please contact Tom Laursen, Senior Coordinator for Volunteer Engagement, at volunteer@sfedfund.org or (628) 345-2604.
Want to become a mentor in the 2024-25 school year?
Fill out the mentor volunteer application
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