Ideas from other Portland Schools...

 emailed other counselors after our last meeting.  I copied responses from the people who have the program that’s kind of similar to ours below:

This is from Franklin:

“Yep…it’s a cool class…had one of our AP English teachers start it last year with a lot of kids who pushed into study hall and worked with kids who were failing….2 mentors were assigned one student.  They secured permission from parents to work with teachers of the student to help gather homework and reinforce habits…
Teacher is Susie Bartley.

Then this year a different AP English teacher took it over…same model.  Elle Wilder. 

Your teachers could email for the syllabus?

Hope this helps!!”

This is from Madison:

“We started it last year as a course option.  It was originally just for 9^th core but some kids are helping in other areas like 10^th core, digital design and SPED as well.

ACADEMIC MENTOR: Students have the opportunity to peer mentor and assist

in teaching coursework in the 9th grade science, language arts, math, or Modern

World History classroom. This coursework involves a commitment to attend a two day

training and meetings once a month during the school year with the academic

mentor coordinator and/or teacher(s). Academic Mentors will be taught effective

classroom strategies to assist teachers with general classroom activities, to help

small groups of students, and to work one-on-one with individual students. Students

who choose this course should have strong academic skills, enjoy mentoring, and

have the desire to help build the academic skills of younger students. This is a great

course for student who are thinking about becoming a teacher or for students who

just want to help freshmen be academically successful. Please list a focus area on

the forecast sheet: Science, Language Arts, Math, or Modern World History.

Prerequisite : Teacher recommendation and grades of A or B in focus area

(Science, Language Arts, Math, or Modern World History).

Good luck, Erin.”

This is from Wilson:

“Hi Jen, 

We have a peer tutoring program that our Librarian has started. The kids work in a 9th grade classroom but also have to do a few assignments with our librarian. Her name is Linda Campillo... She can give you the details. They earn a letter grade.”

Roosevelt just listed AVID and Lincoln has a program that isn’t really a course.    I kind of like Madison’s idea of a training and prerequisite grades but I’m pretty black and white and my counterparts here in counseling are pretty grey – not sure they’d go for it!  Damn counselor-typesJ.  I know we have a GPA requirement so at least that’s a start.  Franklin does something interesting but sounds like a lot of work! 

By the way, here is our current course description in the course guide:

“Student Mentor (11, 12) – full year course

Prerequisites: 3.5 GPA (or teacher/counselor recommendation), strong literacy, math, organizational and interpersonal skills, hardworking and responsible, as well as possessing a desire to help other students. 

Mentors will work with freshmen to provide academic support and tutoring in either Freshman Success, Math Support or in an Academy class.  Mentors foster communication and relationships with younger students, encourage organization and academic skills applicable to their own learning, collaborate in targeted learning with teacher/student(s), as well as develop valuable work skills in leadership, teaching and mentoring.  This is a graded (A-F) mentorship based on: daily attendance, individual and group tutoring, monitoring students’ progress, initiative and actions reflecting academic scholarship.”

Hope that helps some!