Care for Students exists to provide tutoring and support to students who wouldn’t otherwise have access. During the Fall 2020 – Spring 2021 school year we felt immense responsibility to these schools, students, and communities. To meet this challenge, we grew our leadership team to four people, increased the number of Microsoft employee volunteers from 56 to 110, and expanded our partnerships into six additional schools (10 in total).

Classes first started in September almost entirely remote. Schools were working rapidly to adapt to this new form of digital learning – discovering how to get students to put their cameras on, unmute their microphones, and engage. We found our place alongside them, helping digitize materials, providing financial support, and, of course, tutoring. As the first semester progressed, we began to hear from our volunteers how their tutoring sessions were beginning to evolve. Beyond their initial goal of providing high quality academic support for their students, volunteers began to report how often the conversations with their students would grow beyond the academic assignment they had allotted for that session. The students were talking about how they missed their friends, or their sports, or their teachers. Our volunteers did what came naturally to them and lent an ear, shared stories of their own experiences, and let their students know they were not alone.

As the second semester began, some schools started to transition back to a form of “hybrid learning” where students would come back only certain days each week. Our volunteers and school partners worked with us to try to adjust the tutoring sessions around these new schedules. Not all of the sessions succeeded, we saw some pull back or merely get lost in the shuffle as teachers and administrators worked tirelessly to navigate seemingly weekly set of new learning models, but the majority continued on, supporting students who were working to recover or stave off learning loss.

Working with these schools and their communities was humbling. At every turn we came away more and more in awe of our partner educators, students, and volunteers. The Fall 2020 – Spring 2021 school year taught us great many lessons, and we are energized to continue to grow, improve, and serve students in need.