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Mentorship programs add to student experiences

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Staff

BY KATE GRIESMANN
Staff Writer

CARRBORO — On Friday mornings, long before the first lunches are served, the cafeteria of Frank Porter Graham Elementary School is abuzz with activity. At 8 a.m., about 30 boys – half of them fifth-graders, the other half Carrboro High School football players – gather for the weekly meeting of Paws 2 Paws, a school mentorship program.

Paws 2 Paws, started earlier this year, pairs Carrboro football players with fifth-grade students who could benefit from some extra attention and a positive role model.

“We try to foster a sense of community with our older guys and have them give back to the community,” said Jason Tudryn, Carrboro High’s football coach.

So far this year, the group has helped clean up school grounds, studied important characters from history and written letters to their personal heroes. On a recent Friday, the group worked on making self-portraits that included three characteristics they admired about themselves.

“We are talking about the hero inside them,” Turdryn said, who organizes and facilitates the weekly meetings.

Laughter and good-natured jokes filled the air as the students encouraged each other to come up with traits they liked about themselves. When fifth-grader Adam Jones wrote the word loyal, his 10-grade partner, Dylan Arant, playfully teased him, “You took mine! I just put that.” Adam, laughing, then turned the tables, pointing out that he had now written three character traits while Dylan only had one.

Tudryn, whose wife teaches at FPG, worked with both schools’ principals to create a program that would benefit both the mentors and mentees. Thus far, he said, the program has been a success. “The older guys are maturing and the younger guys are feeling a sense of belonging,” he said. Next year, he hopes to expand the program to include middle school students.

Paws 2 Paws is one of many mentor programs in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. Some programs, such as the Blue Ribbon Mentor-Advocate or Big Brothers, Big Sisters, are available to students at all schools across the district. Others, like Paws 2 Paws, are organized and run on a school level. Some programs target students with academic needs, while others are geared toward certain subsets: boys, girls, Latinos, blacks, English-language learners. The common thread through them all is a desire to help students become successful in school and recognize the potential they have.

At McDougle Elementary, students who are having trouble academically or socially may be invited to join Dolphin Duos, where they are paired with a staff-member mentor. Though the program is aimed at students who may be having trouble with class work, improving academics isn’t the main goal. “It’s really more about having a champion for the students at school,” Principal Amanda Hartness said.

Recently the group – about 20 students and their mentors – took a field trip to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. Grant money helped pay for transportation, lunches and disposable cameras for the students to document the trip.

Dolphin Duos mentors are required to check in with their students at least once a week and fill out an online survey to track student interaction. Beyond that, mentors are encouraged to attend family or school events with their mentees or organize activities with the student outside of school.

“We modeled it after the Blue Ribbon program, but on an elementary level,” Hartness said about the program that, like Paws 2 Paws, started this year and is expected to expand next year.

Expansion is also on the horizon for the Blue Ribbon Mentor-Advocate program, the district’s comprehensive mentorship program. Starting in fourth-grade, BRMA matches students with a community member mentor who commits to spending at least two hours a week with the child for the next two years. Students stay in the program until they graduate from high school, providing a continuum of support and advocacy over the years.

“What they do goes well beyond the school walls,” said Graig Meyer, BRMA program coordinator. “We have an opportunity to make an impact over time.”

Academic tutoring, recreational outings, leadership opportunities and college-preparation exposure are all part of the program – and it’s a recipe that works. In the 15 years since the program started, all BRMA high school graduates have gone on to some form of post-secondary education. Only one student involved in the program has dropped out of school.

Next year, BRMA hopes to add to the current skeleton crew of just two full-time staff members and a handful of interns. The extra hands would allow them to expand student academic support and recruit additional mentors, a constant challenge.

“We know there are other kids that would benefit, but we need more mentors,” Meyer said. “The type of mentoring we do isn’t just feel-good mentoring – we want to make sure our kids are successful.”

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