Educational Justice in Louisville is a program that offers free tutoring for fifth graders and middle school students.

The tutors who are high school students help them with homework, test preparation and skill building.

More in tonight's Education Matters report.

The mission of educational justice is to stem the academic equity gap.

The number one issue in education educational inequity is poverty.

You know, they don't have, you know, the other supports that have been, you know, historically, you know, afforded to people who have higher incomes.

And, you know, you do that over enough time, you know, and not have those resources in place.

You're going to have students that are going to be in a situation that is not going to be optimal for learning.

I think the peer to peer mentor model, in particular, a near peer mentor model.

So middle school student, high school students is really powerful because the high school students have that immediate lived experience, you know, that they can relate back to the middle school students.

The eighth grade is such a critical development time for students.

And when you look at the things that they're challenged with and as a and we want them to be ready and prepared for high school because a good, well-prepared high school student is going to go off to college or some good postsecondary opportunity and then to a good career.

But it starts in middle school because that's the formative time when they are, you know, moving to much more challenging academics.

You know, their social structure is changing.

Of course.

They're going through, you know, a big change in their physical life.

We usually do a lot of math subjects, and I teach that just through like a little drawing program on my computer.

And we sometimes do like some study strategies, like for English vocabulary words and close reading.

My time of service was really awesome.

I always like to think that we did together and him being different for me was really hard.

I talk about how my day was at school and then we get started where my work.

And sometimes she's teaching me.

I remember one time we were doing multiplication.

And I was like, Okay, here's how you do it.

And she's like, No, no, no.

This is how I do it.

And like, we still got the same issue at the end.

So I was like, okay, I mean, if she got the same answer and that's what works for her, then I'll learn it.

And I guess whenever she needs help again, do the same when she does.

Well, the benefit for the middle schoolers and we called our middle schoolers scholars is that number one, they get academic assistance.

So they get help with homework.

And then if they have areas of weakness, we can work with our, you know, our our teacher staff, you know, to help target, you know, lesson plans and curriculum that will will really focus on those areas of need for that student so we can improve, you know, their own self-confidence in doing that work, but also their test scores as well.

The second thing they get out of it, you know, is a buddy who can help guide them through the social, emotional, you know, process of being a middle schooler, you know, being, you know, being a, you know, a teenager.

It's more than like tutoring and like getting to figure out how to solve this math problem or reading.

It's also like, I guess the relationship you build, too, because even though mentoring, you need to work on a lot of like homework and stuff.

We also do have times where we just talk and laugh together and it's really enjoyable.

I will say, Man, Trinity like one of the things that we bonded over like that, really like set it off was she was telling me because I also went to her elementary school and so she was telling me how she's a cheerleader.

And I was like, wait, I was a cheerleader?

Elementary school.

So I brought out like, like bows and stuff.

And she was like, Oh, they change this year and like, this are both look back now and this isn't that.

And I was like, and it was like a fun thing to bond over because I don't think you're going to meet a tutor that would see your same elementary school and was a cheerleader too.

Q The students meet with their tutors online once a week.

They also have labs where they can meet in person twice a month.