Our mission at Star is to help each child improve his or her academic skills, meet their educational potential,and foster positive attitudes towards school. We accomplish this by matching each child to a volunteer tutor once or twice a week for the school year. We provide a complete orientation for the tutor as well as on-going assistance. Tutoring takes place after school from 3-7 on Mondays and Wednesdays and 3-6 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. A tutor must be able to commit at least two hours per week for our program.

Description:
The Star Learning Center is one of seven programs sponsored by St. Matthew's & St. Timothy's Neighborhood Center. Star is housed on the second floor of the Neighborhood Center in a children's library brimming with books, learning games, and computers for use by the students and tutors in the program.

The school-year tutoring service runs from the end of September through the end of May. Tutoring takes place after school on Mondays and Wednesdays until 7:00 pm and Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays until 6:00 pm. There is a registration fee for the program, but no charge for each tutoring session. There is also a Summer Session that runs for 6 weeks in July and August.

Our tutors are volunteers who are given training and guidance by two staff reading specialists.

History:
St. Matthew's and St. Timothy's Neighborhood Center has been in existence at West 84th Street since 1971. The center, which is a part of the United Neighborhood Houses of NYC. The Star Learning Center started as a tutoring center in 1959 in another location on the Upper West Side. Since 1971 it has operated continuously at the Neighborhood Center. It has served thousands of children, many of whom bring their own children back for tutoring from all across the city. Over the years, we have become known for our caring atmosphere as well as our determination to help each child that walks through our doors. As a result we often have a large waiting list of students while we search for new volunteer tutors.

Contact person: Deena Hellman, Director, (212) 362-6750 X303, (email)
Office fax number: (212) 362-8230

Address:

26 West 84th Street New York, NY 10024 (See a map)

Directions:

We are located on West 84th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West.   Nearest Metro/Subway Stop: B or C to 86th Street,   Walk distance (in minutes): 2 blocks   Nearest Bus Stop: 10on CPW, or 7&11 on Columbus, 2 blocks minute walk