It Starts With You(th)
Meet Logan Spoonemore This Seattle-area high school student launched a free virtual tutoring service during the coronavirus pandemic By Patty Lindley
Of the countless uncertainties, stressors and “You must be kidding me!” disruptions of the pandemic, many parents and teachers would undoubtedly rank as perhaps most challenging the struggles related to providing quality distance learning for their students. Early on in the wake of school closures, Logan Spoonemore, now a senior at The Northwest School, was doing her daily reading of The New York Times and saw an article about how disproportionately the pandemic was straining some parents, specifically parents working in frontline jobs, in their ability to support their children’s remote schooling. Acknowledging her relative privilege attending a private school with abundant resources, Spoonemore decided to do something about it. She marched up to her room, and after a productive span of about two weeks in April 2020, Students Helping Students Seattle (studentshelpingstudentsseattle.com), her brainchild concept of a free volunteer-led service that pairs high school tutors with younger kids who need help with their distance learning, was born. ParentMap got the chance to catch up with Spoonemore to learn more about the program and what’s next on her enterprising agenda.
What motivated you to start Students Helping Students Seattle? At the onset of distance learning last year, I noticed personally the struggles of
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unteer tutors so that when the requests came in, I wasn’t denying anyone access or I wouldn’t have enough tutors. So, I sent out an email to the principal of my school and then to other public and private school principals in the Seattle area asking if I could get a student coordinator, explaining the role and seeing if they’d be willing to support it. The response I got was amazing. How many volunteer coordinators and tutors do you have now? I have eight student coordinators, 350 tutors, and I believe that the volunteers come from 38 different schools.
online learning and I recognized I’m very privileged to attend this private school where I have extra support from teachers. Throughout that whole process, I couldn’t help but imagine how difficult it must be for younger students and their parents. So, I presented the idea to my dad. At first he said, “That’s pretty impossible. There’s no way that would work.” But I went up to my room and I found this website-making software, and I put it all together. My dad was very surprised. From there, how did you seek additional support to launch the program successfully? I wanted to make sure I had enough vol-
The student coordinators definitely help by bringing in the tutors, and if I have a special request come in — say it’s someone who wants to learn Mandarin — I can text and get into contact with the coordinators to see if they can find anyone. Do you have a succession plan in mind for when you move on to college? I actually have a younger sister who is going to be in ninth grade next year. She’s one of the smartest people I know, so I think I’m going to spend some time before I leave teaching her. She’s very involved in lots of activism and programs, and she is very excited about potentially taking over the program. When you reflect on what you’ve accomplished, what has surprised you most? When I first started, I thought the only need I would be fulfilling is for having people get academic assistance, but as
