In March 2022, President Biden issued a call to action to Americans to serve as tutors, mentors, and other roles to provide students with the academic, social, mental health, and other supports they need to recover from the impacts of the pandemic. The National Partnership for Student Success (NPSS) launched in June 2022 to respond to President Biden’s call to action and set a goal to add 250,000 more caring adults in schools to provide supportive learning experiences for all students to learn and thrive.
NPSS identified five categories of evidence-based student support roles. Below we’ve provided a description of each role with a related resource that you may be able to replicate or put into immediate action.
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Academic tutoring is a form of teaching, one-on-one or in a small group, towards a specific goal. High-impact tutoring leads to substantial learning gains for students by supplementing (but not replacing) students’ classroom experiences. High-impact tutoring responds to individual needs and complements students’ existing curriculum.
If you’re looking for free technical assistance on academic tutoring, reach out to NPSS for high-quality technical assistance and support from Accelerate and the National Student Support Accelerator.
Interested in assessing the alignment of your academic tutoring program to research-based quality standards? Or are you looking for tailored recommendations and resources on how to improve your tutoring program? Developed by the National Student Support Accelerator, this free, research-based tool can help you assess the quality of your tutoring programs.
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High-quality mentoring involves trained and supported mentors facilitating a variety of youth development and enrichment experiences; helping youth explore and affirm their identity; providing navigational support around school-to-work and school-to-college transitions; and buffering against adversity in school, out of school, and over the summer.
If you’re looking for free technical assistance on high-quality mentoring, reach out to NPSS for high-quality technical assistance and support from MENTOR.
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To create the conditions for high-quality mentoring, Caroline County Public School District (VA) knew that they must train and support the mentors providing the support to students. One way to provide support to the mentors is by providing a Mentor Handbook.
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Student success coaches provide 1:1 tutoring, small group instruction, and social-emotional skill building to students. They welcome students to school in the morning and run after-school enrichment programs and schoolwide events designed to enhance the school’s culture and climate. Student success coaches form diverse teams of near-peers in systemically under-resourced schools who partner with teachers to provide integrated, relationship-driven social, emotional, academic, and youth development supports to enhance student outcomes and create positive learning environments at the classroom and whole school level during and after the school day.
If you’re looking for free technical assistance on student success coaching, reach out to NPSS for high-quality technical assistance and support from City Year.
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Wraparound/Integrated student support coordinators enable schools to build strong connections and systems with community health, mental health, and social service providers.
In many schools and districts, these supports are delivered through the community school strategy—which addresses the holistic needs of students. Community schools work with families, students, teachers, and community organizations to identify the unmet needs of students and families and develop a plan to leverage community resources to address these needs in the school building, turning schools into community hubs. This strategy brings needed support for students and families into schools, such as through after-school programs, health and social services, and other comprehensive services. They can therefore help ensure that no child’s opportunities are determined by their ZIP code, family’s income, race/ethnicity, disability status, or other factors.
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If you’re looking for free technical assistance on wraparound services or integrated student supports, reach out to NPSS for high-quality technical assistance and support from Communities in Schools.
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Postsecondary transition coaching supports students with postsecondary exposure, college search and fit/match, college application creation, financial aid applications, and navigation of postsecondary transitions.
If you’re looking for free technical assistance on postsecondary transition coaching, reach out to NPSS for high-quality technical assistance and support from the National College Attainment Network.
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For an idea on how to recruit college students to serve as postsecondary transition coaches, check out California’s College Corps webpages.
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NPSS voluntary quality standards are designed for use by schools, districts, state education agencies, youth-serving organizations, foundations, community groups, and others to better understand essential components of quality, set goals as part of existing or emerging continuous improvement processes, set goals when designing new programs, and consider prospective partners.
These voluntary quality standards highlight a significant number of common elements across the five NPSS student support roles— postsecondary transition coaching, academic tutoring, high-quality mentoring, student success coaching, and wraparound/integrated student support coordination. They are essential to any effort to recruit, train, place, and support staff and volunteers in programs that are safe, supportive, and effectively engage students and families. These evidence-based definitions also include distinguishing features for each role.
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If you have examples from your work supporting student success by using one or more of these five roles, share your story and collaborate with us here. Ideally, please provide a web link for easy sharing, but all submissions are welcomed. Let us know how you are defining and measuring success!
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