Life Sciences student launches McMaster Teaching Assistant Volunteer program for Hamilton schools

Working with the kids at Hess Street Elementary School gave Sarah Kalmanovitch a big idea.

The Honours Life Science student started volunteering at the school in Hamilton’s downtown core back in November 2023. She’s from Calgary and wanted to connect with the community beyond Mac’s campus. Teaching comes naturally to Sarah – she’s been a swim and lifeguard instructor and comes from a family of teachers.

At first, the students didn’t know what to make of this random and enthusiastic stranger who showed up one day and kept returning week after week. Sarah won them over and became their go-to source for all questions related to high school, university and science.

Sarah was an extra pair of hands for teachers and became a one-on-one and group tutor, mentor and unabashed cheerleader for the students. There were a few key lessons Sarah delivered over and over again – every student’s capable of doing hard things, learning is “really neat” and everyone has different strengths and abilities that are worth celebrating.

“It was an honour to watch students realize their potential.”

Back at McMaster, Sarah’s friends had lots of questions. What it was like to volunteer? What was the best part? And how could they sign up and get involved?

That got Sarah thinking. What if McMaster had a program that sent students into classrooms at elementary and secondary schools? “That would be such an easy way to make a big difference in a child’s life and at the same time thank teachers for all that they do while strengthening Mac’s connection with the community.”

Sarah assumed that program already existed. When she couldn’t find it, she enlisted the help of Eisha Segaran and Natasha Hrycay and they built the McMaster Teaching Assistant Volunteer program from scratch.

Putting her powers of persuasion to work, Sarah recruited even more students to join the executive team. “We’ve been learning on the fly. The program’s grown so fast right from the very start. It was a bit overwhelming at times – there were so many emails coming our way.” Matching students with classrooms was a herculean task done manually with a monster-sized spreadsheet.

More than 300 students from across the university showed up for an initial info session last term. Around 150 students completed three days of mandatory training that sets clear expectations around roles and responsibilities. “We want to make sure that we’re not adding work to teachers’ plates when we go into their classrooms.”

This term, students in the McMaster Teaching Assistant Volunteer program are helping out in more than 100 classrooms at over 30 schools throughout Hamilton and are expected to clock more than 5,000 hours of community service.

Next steps include automating the process for matching students with schools, receiving club status from the McMaster Students Union and making it easier and quicker for students to complete the mandatory Vulnerable Sector Check. Sarah has also heard from teachers and university students in other cities and is looking at how to expand the program. “Our mission is to have trained teaching assistant volunteers available for every teacher who wants an extra pair of hands in their classroom.”

While Sarah graduates this spring, she says a dedicated team’s in place to keep the program going and growing. “This is my thank-you gift to McMaster and Hamilton for five amazing years.”