CHAPTER 6: Study Buddy: An Online Individualized Tutoring Program for Racialized, Indigenous, and Immigrant Students

The COVID-19 crisis has affected all segments of Canadian society with the impacts being particularly severe for equity-deserving groups. Families were challenged by the convergence of multiple stresses, specifically with schools being closed. When K–12 education was disrupted, the uneven approaches to supporting remote students caused opportunity gaps among students and increased the burden on families. Families from equity-deserving communities were concerned about their children falling behind in learning outcomes. Using a combination of the social innovation theory and the ecological model, the Diversity Institute developed a project to address these challenges by bringing different stakeholders (e.g., families, communities, individual students, community services and education institutions, etc.) together with one solution—the Study Buddy program. This chapter presents a case study of this innovative program which supported students from equity-deserving groups both during and after the pandemic. The program provides a platform to support parents by connecting them to teacher candidates from universities across Ontario who provide free online individualized tutoring services to their children. In so doing, the program helps teacher candidates gain firsthand tutoring experience while also counting towards their practicum hours. Since launching in May 2020, the program has enrolled 684 students and serviced 451 families with the help of 331 tutors who have delivered over 12,800+ individualized tutoring sessions across K–12 teachable subjects. The case study findings present evidence of the impacts the program has had on participating students and their families. Namely, the findings suggest that targeted efforts to address systemic challenges in education faced by equity-deserving communities have resulted in increased well-being of these children and their families.