The past few weeks, Pat has been sharing ideas about how to make coaching a more successful experience for both the volunteer and the students. We’re taking a break from that this week to let you know where we are with regard to this year’s recruitment.

We are thrilled to report we have 955 volunteers registered for this school year, and we’re not done! To each and every one of you – THANK YOU for your commitment to our schools, our teachers, our children and our community. We strive to create world-class programs where our volunteers keep coming back. We’re happy to see about half of our volunteers are returning from last year, or years prior.

While our stated goal for this year is 1,000 coaches, we could easily place another 200 beyond that. Our greatest needs right now are at Burnet and Webb Middle Schools for Reading, and Mendez Middle School for Math. If you can give one hour a week to any of these locations, please sign up at austinpartners.org/volunteer or, better yet, just call us at 637-0900 and we’ll help you get registered in less than three minutes.

If you have signed up, we’ve started training and you should have received an email inviting you to select your training schedule. The two hour sessions afford you some great take-aways. You’ll get your curriculum binder that gives you step-by-step instructions on best practices for engaging with your students. You’ll get tips from experts, and chances to ask questions to program coordinators. And, you’ll get the chance to meet other wonderful, caring adults who also decided to give an hour a week to Austin schools.

All of us at APIE work hard to make your choice of volunteering a delightful, positive experience, from our initial ask to your last coaching session. If there’s something you need from us that we’ve not provided, please email us at apie@austinpartners.org or call 512-637-0900 and let us achieve our goal of providing the best volunteer support anywhere.

Join us as we open classroom doors and children’s lives to new potential and new knowledge. We are so grateful for your time, we promise to make the best use of it.