On October 22nd, GWTeach Speaks hosted Arielle K. Andrews, co-founder of Lesson Check-In. Under Lesson Check-In, parents can sign up to have their student matched with a volunteer who “checks-in” on a student for 45 minutes every week. During that check-in period, students can ask for homework help, practice an extracurricular skill, or just talk about their experiences with remote instruction.
Andrews got the idea for Lesson Check-In from a dinner table talk. She and her friends were discussing how students from marginalized communities were probably feeling the effects of the coronavirus pandemic more than others, and those effects might show up months, even years, later in SAT scores and such.
When prompted to act on the issue, Andrews decided to create Lesson Check-In. She worked with fellow Stanford Law students to register the nonprofit, then they began operations. Lesson Check-In now serves roughly 50 students across the United States and they have begun to partner with DCPS’s Ballou High School to reach more students.
Using a “village mindset,” Andrews draws on the individual strength of volunteers to the grow the program. To accommodate participating students with IEPs, Andrews calls on volunteers experienced in working with children with disabilities. Many bilingual volunteers have also expressed interest in checking-in on students with language barriers, a capacity which Andrews hopes Lesson Check-In will fulfill soon with the translation of their registration page.
Though Lesson Check-In requires volunteers matched with a student be undergraduate or graduate students, many other members of the community have requested they contribute. Initially, Lesson Check-In looked to create content to help students with their core subjects, but many volunteers have expanded the page to include tutorials on mindfulness, simple food preparation, financial literacy, and at-home science experiments.
Andrews hopes more students enrolled in teacher preparation programs, such as GWTeach, start to volunteer with Lesson Check-In. These students, having fulfilled Lesson Check-In’s fingerprinting and background check requirements, will most likely be streamlined to matching with a student immediately.
Interested in volunteering with Lesson Check-In? Go to lessoncheckin.org to register today!