Homework Help
I know – summer hasn’t even begun yet! But if your library is anything like mine, while you are preparing for the incoming summer chaos, you are also looking ahead to events and services you’ll be offering this fall. Those marketing deadlines never stop coming.
I work at a medium-sized, suburban public library in central Ohio. We’ve offered a Homework Help Center for over a decade, where students bring in homework assignments and library staff and volunteers help them work through the material.
Meeting Student Needs
In the last few years, we’ve been starting to see a change in student needs that has caused us to think about what services we offer and what we are truly experts in. Our local schools are assigning less and less homework. We are seeing families, especially families learning English, who are really looking for free tutoring.
Our staff are great at helping students find the resources they need to complete an assignment, but we aren’t content experts with the skills to teach a subject (that’s a different master’s degree!). We don’t have the funding to pay enough teachers or tutors to provide the kind of free, one-on-one help that our families are looking for. Where does that leave this service?
ALSC Benefits
One of the benefits of being an ALSC member is the amazing community of experts at your fingertips. When your library is considering adding a new service, is adjusting to changes in community needs, or is thinking about sunsetting a long-time offering, you’ve got access to a team of experts who have likely already gone through, or are thinking about going through, the same change.
Some options available to ASLC members:
- Review blog posts, Children’s and Libraries articles, and toolkits on the topic. These stood out to me regarding homework help services:
- Make a discussion post in the ALSC section of ALA Connect.
- Write a blog post – like this one! – and ask for comments from folks going through a similar situation.
Your Voice
So ALSC experts: what are your experiences with offering homework help in your library? Are your local students still being assigned homework? Have any medium-sized, suburban libraries had success with free tutoring programs? Is homework help and tutoring, beyond connecting students with resources, in the scope of children’s services in public libraries?
We’d love to hear your experiences in the comments!
This blog post relates to ALSC core competencies of: II. Reference and User Services and VI. Administrative and Management Skills.
Annamarie Carlson is the Kids & Teen Services Manager at Westerville Public Library and is a member of ALSC’s Membership Committee.