Want to make kids thirst for some educational success?  Give them a dose of cool.

That’s the idea behind a program coming to some Norwalk—and possibly Stamford—schools this fall through the auspices of Peer2Peer Tutors, a Maryland company that links high-achieving and unstuffy high schoolers with youngsters who need an academic boost.

The Norwalk Children’s Foundation has committed $20,000 to the project, which will bring multiple weekly after-school tutoring sessions to 30 youngsters for the coming school year, at Jefferson and possibly Silvermine schools. Peer 2Peer also hopes to find a source of funding for similar work in Stamford.

Peer 2Peer will hire the local coordinator—known as the management operational mentor, or MOM—who will in turn hire the tutors, who will be in grades 10-12. To be eligible, they must have 3.7 grade point averages, and passions and personalities that will match well with the elementary schoolers, who will be third to fifth graders. 

“It’s the little things that make this work,” said Erik Kimel, the 24-year-old entrepreneur who hit upon the concept. As a high school tutor himself, he realized he hit it off with his student over a shared interest in basketball, and the kid was soon making great strides. Kimel recruited classmates to tutor others—and a business was born.

“I realized that students are some of our most underutilized teaching resources we have in our system,” said Kimel. But he said no one had done this type of linkage “with a clear structure.” To date, the program has operated in six districts in three states.

Because there are only a few years’ difference between the tutors and their students, Kimel said it is sometimes much easier for them to relate to each other. And the tutor provides living proof that academic success doesn’t have to make one stuffy—and perhaps a role the youngster can shoot for in the future.

“Each year there are always tutees that become tutors,” he said.

In Norwalk, the decision to tap Peer2Peer evolved out of a need to free adults who volunteer in the schools’ highly regarded mentor program from requests for academic assistance, said Anthony Allison, program director of the foundation. After all, he said, the mentors, who are not chosen for their academic skills, are primarily supposed to be a source of friendship and emotional support for children during their weekly visits. Children who are participants in the mentor program at the designated schools will receive first crack at the tutoring, he said, adding the initial focus will  be on literacy.

Allison said the foundation was introduced to the Peer2Peer concept by Superintendent of Schools Susan Marks, who was familiar with it in Maryland and further exploration showed it could be a helpful approach for youngsters here.

Ideally, he said the tutors would go back to the schools where they were once students themselves. “That way, they’re giving back,” he said.

High school students interested in becoming tutors can go the Peer2Peer web site and click “join our team.”