A Wonderful Problem

The start up process involves many moving pieces. Only weeks away from program launch, many items must still fall into place. Will students want to participate? Will we be able to find talented teachers interested in working with us? Will we have the money needed? Will the instructional materials arrive on time? And, as an outside school partner, I only have some control over these items - I depend on Hyde to answer questions about program space, storage, and access to data. So many questions to be answered, yet the countdown to launch continues.

Over the last two days, we were able to address one of the questions listed above: Will students want to participate? This week, I was given the opportunity to make a short presentation in four different 9th grade reading classes. Given the opportunity to speak to 40-50 Hyde 9th grade students, I was curious to see whether the kids would be interested in the program we were offering. Would they want to do extra work? Would they want to help younger students become better readers? Would they be willing to dedicate themselves to improving their school performance to earn financial incentives?

How many of the students I spoke with filled out the interest form so I could approach their guardians with additional information? Every. Single. One.

With space for only 30 tutors, we will now have to find ways to identify the students most appropriate for Reach's program - those students that would derive the most benefit from the structure and motivation we offer. For now, we have more interested students than we have space in the program - what a wonderful problem!

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark