WARREN School expands mentor program

Each staff member has up to 20 students to mentor.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Although Warren G. Harding High School officials decided not to pursue a grant to convert to smaller schools, they're still trying to implement some of those small-school concepts.
As part of that effort, mentorship, which started five years ago at the high school, is being expanded.
Each staff member is assigned between 16 to 20 students to mentor through four years. Students get assigned to staff members randomly.
"Students have an adult on staff from the first year when they arrive until they leave, and the staff member gets to know them and their parents," said William Mullane, Harding principal.
Last July, school officials decided against pursuing a KnowledgeWorks grant aimed at making larger high schools smaller and more intimate. They were concerned residents would confuse that plan with a bond issue on the November ballot to raise the local portion of funds to build new city schools.
The school hasn't ruled out applying for the grant in the future.
Grant received
The district received a $185,000 grant in late 2002 for professional development of a plan to improve achievement and graduation rates at the school. A larger grant would have been used to implement the small-school changes.
The school had been turned down in the initial round when the foundation said there wasn't enough information in Harding's plan about how small schools and accompanying changes would be implemented. Committee members decided not to seek the funding in the second round because of concerns about confusing the public.
When teachers want to send information regarding a student home to parents, the mentor acts as the conduit for that information. That mentor also can determine if a student is frequently receiving notes about concerns from several teachers and refer that student to a guidance counselor or for other help.
They want to branch out this year to include mentors in students' preparation for the future. Through meetings with mentors, students learn about ACT and SAT tests, individual career plans and other information at the respective time of year.
When needed, mentoring time is scheduled during the school day. The sessions vary between 12 and 17 minutes depending on the information to be covered.
Discussion topic
Linda Detwiler, strategic planning coordinator for the school, said mentorship is one of the things to be discussed at a strategic planning team meeting later this month.
According to the school's mentorship manual, mentoring can also be a deterrent to peer pressure.
"The simple school wide knowledge that when students skip school, fail to perform or conduct themselves appropriately, parents will know in a timely fashion creates and atmosphere in which students can legitimately rebuff attempts by peers to get them to participate in misbehavior," the manual says.
The process to improve the school has been in the works for the past five years and started with the formation of a strategic plan to improve the schools. The plan involved representatives of the community including teachers, parents, staff and political, labor and business leaders.
denise.dick@vindy.com