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Hunter Mirer didn’t fully understand what attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was when he received his diagnosis in elementary school. His ADHD became a consistent issue in his education, and finding the right tutoring services proved to be too expensive. When he started studying at Syracuse University in 2019, he tried free tutoring but felt tutors didn’t understand his individual needs well enough.

His experience inspired him to create the student-run tutoring service Upskill Education. The service hopes to provide students with the resources that Mirer, an SU sophomore and Upskill’s president, wishes he had when he was younger.

Upskill Education provides free, virtual one-on-one tutoring to students in kindergarten through college with the aim of increasing equal access to education. SU students can tutor subjects ranging from basic reading and grammar to mathematics and science as well as high school level courses. Tutors can also offer storybook reading sessions and general academic advising such as time management and organizing schedules.

“I noticed (services at SU) weren’t actually really that helpful,” Mirer said. “And I think it was because they just didn’t understand the difference in abilities of some students who have educational disabilities like me. So I decided, ‘Why not make a solution myself?’”

Mirer and a few of his friends started forming Upskill Education in October. Among his friends was Julianna Mercado, an SU sophomore and now the vice president of Upskill.

Upskill is still interviewing tutors from organizations such as the co-ed medical fraternity Phi Delta Epsilon and plans to have 16 tutors if they’re all qualified. Mercado hopes the organization breaks tutors of the “bubble” mentality that exists on campus and allows them to reflect on the privilege SU students have that many outside of the “bubble” lack.

“It’s such an overlooked yet such important of a cause,” Mercado said. “I do think that not every student at SU is able to reflect on the privilege that they have receiving education at a private university.”

Mirer expects to begin tutoring sessions with 30 to 40 students from Playful Minds’ location in Springfield, Massachusetts. Playful Minds is a daycare and education organization that works with underprivileged youth.

He said the goal is to have at least 100 students signed up from around the country by the end of the semester. Members are reaching out to schools in Syracuse and Cicero, as well as summer camps and nonprofit organizations around the country to surpass that goal. Upskill received New York state nonprofit status around January and members are looking for an academic adviser to become an SU-registered student organization, he said.

Kate Loveland, a sophomore and marketing chair for Upskill, said that apart from schools such as Seymour Dual Language Academy in Syracuse, she’s reaching out to an organization from her high school in California that works with nearby underserved elementary schools.

“That’s what is so great about Upskill is that we can connect to students across the country,” Loveland said. “And there’s no limit on what students we can help.”

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Along with outreach, Upskill members are also brainstorming ways to raise money. Upskill hosted their first major fundraiser event on Sunday at Chipotle Mexican Grill on Marshall Street and around 30 people participated, Mercado said. Over the past two weeks, the organization has raised about $800 from online fundraising and Sunday’s event.

Tanya Mir, a sophomore and treasurer for Upskill, said she is working to get federal grants so that the organization can afford background checks for tutors.

“Everyone who works at Upskill is so passionate and puts so much time into this organization,” Mir said. “Hunter did a really great job of finding people who want to help the Syracuse community and want to stop that disconnect between our university and the rest of the town. Because it’s something that’s so prevalent now.”

Although the current focus of the organization is to address economic disparity, he hopes to expand the organization enough to include students with disabilities in the program, Mirer said. He’s even bringing in occupational therapists to train the tutors so that he can fulfill his goal of helping students like him.

“You’re legitimately making a difference to students that otherwise have no other option, or no other resource to reach out to,” Mirer said.

Published on February 22, 2021 at 10:06 pm

Contact Abby: [email protected] | @abbyweiss_21