How Can Virtual Tutoring Help Students During Distance Learning? (Ekaterina Goncharova/iStock) was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. Sign up for their newsletters here. As evidence mounts that the pandemic is inflicting academic harm on many students, some Newark schools are turning to a simple yet potentially potent treatment: tutoring. The city school district plans to train students to tutor their peers, and it recently launched a “homework hotline” where teachers work one-on-one with students over video chat. Some Newark charter schools are also bringing in tutors, including corporate volunteers at one school and AmeriCorps members at another. All the tutoring is happening virtually while classrooms are closed.