Our Mission
Founded in 1966, Cambridge School Volunteers is an independent non-profit organization supporting the academic and personal success of Cambridge public school children.
CSV's programs help students in every Cambridge public school, PreK- Grade 12, with a particular focus on Cambridge's special populations of low-income, high-needs, and students for whom English is not their first language.
Our programs center on a trained adult making the time to work with a student who needs additional support. The number of students in need of that individualized attention has increased as COVID exacerbated the gaps between students in the highest and lowest percentiles of achievement.
Studies support tutoring such as that offered free of charge by CSV as an effective strategy to narrow achievement and opportunity gaps. A positive relationship with at least one adult at school correlates to enhanced achievement. For many students, a CSV volunteer is that adult.
CSV recruits, trains, and coaches volunteers to work with students of all needs and levels. As a nonprofit partner of the Cambridge Public Schools, our work aligns with the district’s academic and social-emotional objectives, as well as their equity and anti-racist initiatives. We bring more than 650 volunteers to work in Cambridge's twelve elementary schools, four upper schools, the Amigos School (K-8), and the high school each year. These programs match more than 1,200 students annually for one-to-one or small group work.
Watch the video marking CSV’s 50th anniversary to understand the extent of the organization’s impact and how it is connected to the community’s support for students
Our Impact
Our positive impact on student achievement derives from our close connection to the Cambridge, Massachusetts, community at large, one that offers a wealth of knowledge and experience. CSV is able to recruit a corps of tutors and mentors of very high quality and commitment.
Key Strengths that allow us to achieve impact in the Cambridge Public Schools:
Our only service area is the Cambridge Public School District, so we can customize our programs and services to meet the needs of the specific schools in the system.
We are a small organization, and therefore, we are able to adapt quickly to changes in the school district. For example, with restructuring the city’s schools and launching new middle (“upper”) schools in 2012, we created Learning Centers for each new school to address the students in Grades 6–8. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we converted our volunteer onboarding process and many of our supports for students to an all-remote format, using videoconferencing and other digital tools.
We are integrated into the school system as a partner organization. We have relationships cultivated for over five decades with teachers, principals, parents, and administrators throughout the schools.
We have maintained healthy partnerships with the Cambridge business and university community for over three decades. Our corporate volunteer programs bring hundreds of working professionals and graduate students into Cambridge Public Schools as regular, one-on-one Reading Buddies, NetPals mentors, and KeyPals mentors.