Paradise Valley Unified District outlined its Volunteer in Paradise program, which provides eight hours of training to community members who then work in classrooms to support students and teachers.

The program pairs volunteers with teachers based on volunteers' interests and teacher and student needs, and volunteers typically assist directly in classrooms or in short pull-out reading sessions for early grades. Volunteer 1, a volunteer with Paradise Valley Unified District, said, “Volunteer in Paradise is a homegrown program that provides opportunities for community members to come into our school district and support our students and teachers. Basically, what our volunteers do after we provide them with 8 hours of training is they go into the classroom. We match them with a teacher based on what their interests are and what the teachers' needs are and the students' needs are, and they begin volunteering.”

Volunteers described their typical activities and the rewards of the work. Volunteer 3 said, “We come in here for 2 hours and we pull individuals, first graders, to read with us. So they work at their own level. Right. In the water. They move up at their own level, and we just start helping them with basic sight words and developing fluency and comprehension.” Volunteer 4, who said she taught first grade for many years, added, “I love working with the kids. I taught first grade for many years, and I just love seeing them grow, seeing them develop, and that joy on their faces when they learn something new. Yes. Good job today. Congratulations.”

Speakers emphasized that volunteers see measurable classroom progress over time and that teachers collaborate with volunteers and district staff to integrate them into instruction. Volunteer 4 noted examples of progress: “I've had kids from, you know, counting on their fingers to solve a math problem to a month later they're just ripping them off right out of their heads by memory and it's just excellent to know that you had something to do with that.” Volunteer 2 described the emotional draw of the work: “I always felt this, passion for helping others. I tried with other different volunteer jobs, but it wasn't till I find this 1 that I realized that I really wanted to teach. They always seem super happy to see me and super excited and that's just it makes me really, really happy and makes me wanna come back every week.”

Volunteers urged others in the community to consider joining. Volunteer 1 said the program offers “so much value that you bring that you don't even realize that you bring,” and Volunteer 2 said, “I would definitely invite people to join us and do this amazing thing that we do here with the students.”

The district characterized Volunteer in Paradise as a locally run effort to expand adult support in classrooms by matching trained community members with teacher needs; specific program scale metrics (number of volunteers, number of schools served, or annual hours contributed) were not specified in the remarks.