Library Homework-Help Resources Are Available Nationwide
Statewide and cross-country services link students and their questions about school assignments with educators who can guide them.
This resource article accompanies the article "The New Homework Helper."
While New York City's Dial-A-Teacher Whiteboard is ahead of the curve, there are other useful services for homework help throughout the country. Here's a sample:
Tutor.com has a deal with more than 1,000 libraries nationwide in which library members can get free online homework help. Using a valid library-card number, students log in from their home computer or one at the library. They are encouraged to have one specific question, and the average session is about 20 minutes with a qualified tutor in the subject area.
To find out whether your local library offers this service, call Tutor.com at (800) 411-1970 ext. 228 and ask their representative. Also, search for your local library online and then check its home page, where its homework-help service, if it has one, is usually promoted.
Tutor.com also offers this service to library members in four states: Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, and Rhode Island. (You must be located in a particular state to access some of the links.)
Through Florida's Miami-Dade County Public Schools Dial-A-Teacher site, students can call for homework help at (305) 995-1600 Monday-Thursday, 5-8 p.m. The service is primarily for students in the Miami-Dade school system, but the tutors don't turn away others who call. There's always a Spanish-speaking teacher available, and some nights there are also French-speaking and Haitian Creole–speaking teachers. The service has been hit hard by budget cuts but expects to be in business at least through March 2010.
In New Mexico, the Albuquerque Teacher Federation offers a free Dial-A-Teacher homework service available statewide at (800) 947-8839.
Ohio has a free service, called Homework Now, staffed by professional librarians available seven days a week, 24 hours a day, to help students with homework and research.