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Sunday, November 29, 2009

Mentor Program Pairing Middle-Schoolers With UNM Students Gets Positive Results

By Juan Carlos Rodriguez
Copyright © 2009 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
          Editor's note: This is the latest story in the Journal's series on New Mexico's longstanding achievement gap between Hispanic and Anglo students. We are looking at the problem from different angles and featuring people, schools and programs that appear to work, along with those that don't. One method that seems to be successful: mentoring programs.
        Facing homework after a long school day is tough for most kids.
        It's even harder when academic achievement isn't the first priority at home.
        Many kids don't know what it's like to have an adult other than a teacher encouraging them to study and succeed in school. There are many homes in which taking care of younger siblings or older relatives, making food for the family, working or even going to church take precedence over hitting the books.
        That's where mentors come in.
        Aregmi Aguilar, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of New Mexico, spends 20 hours a week mentoring at Washington Middle School in Downtown Albuquerque through the ENLACE program at UNM.
        Aguilar, a psychology major, attended Washington herself and was one of the first students to be mentored through ENLACE, which employs undergraduate students as mentors at local schools with work study funds.
        "It really helped me get through school. And especially getting into college. I didn't even know what a FAFSA was," Aguilar said, referring to the federal financial aid application. "My mentor helped me learn all about that stuff."
        ENLACE was started in 2001 to help underachieving students begin to make up the gap with the rest of their peers. Josh Corbin, who heads the high school mentoring program for ENLACE, said those students are mostly poor and Latino.
        The program started with 45 students for the mentors to work with. Now there are about 750 at nine middle and high schools, Corbin said. There are 31 mentors, and each mentor works with around 20 students.
        He said ENLACE judges the success of its mentoring by measuring graduation rates, and the first group of 45 students had a 97 percent graduation rate. The next year's group, which consisted of 111 students, had an 87 percent graduation rate.
        Albuquerque Public Schools' overall four-year graduation rate is 63.5 percent.
        A close friend
        ENLACE tracks its students from the time they begin the program, which is usually in sixth grade.
        "The reason we think it's so successful, is these students can relate to our mentors," Corbin said. "They tell us stuff that they wouldn't tell their parent or their teacher because they are afraid they will get into trouble, but they also tell us stuff they wouldn't tell a close friend because they're afraid their friend is going to make fun of them. So we really get the best of both worlds there."
        Angela Reed Padilla, CEO of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Central New Mexico, said fostering a trusting relationship between underachieving kids and adults is the goal of her organization's mentoring program.
        "Our impact studies show that the longer and stronger a match is, the higher the impact is going to be on the child," Reed Padilla said. "It's about emotional support. We put that adult in their life where they didn't have one."
        But Big Brothers/Big Sisters, ENLACE and other groups that provide mentors such as Youth Development Inc. say there is a big problem with finding male Latino mentors for male Latino kids.
        "Most of the kids on our waiting list are boys, and 60 percent are Hispanic. And most of them we are matching with Anglo men," Reed Padilla said. "So basically, the kids are over 60 percent Hispanic and the volunteers are over 60 percent Anglo."
        Corbin said only eight of ENLACE's mentors are males, and of those, four are Latino.
        Getting results
        Abel Murillo and Oscar Rivas are seventh graders at Washington who are mentored by ENLACE compañeros, as the mentors are known there. Aguilar said both boys' parents are Mexican immigrants, speak limited English and don't help their sons with homework very much.
        Rivas joined the program during his sixth-grade year and liked it so much, he convinced his friend Murillo to join.
        Murillo said in sixth grade he had difficulty in many subjects, especially language arts.
        "In language arts I'm getting A's now," he said.
        Both boys said homework is not a priority at home, with Rivas being heavily involved in church and Murillo hanging out with friends. Aregmi said the time after school they spend with their mentor assures their homework gets done and gives them time to bond to an adult who cares about their future.
        YDI, ENLACE and Big Brothers/Big Sisters all report that many of their students receiving help improve in either academic performance, attendance or in "self esteem." None of the groups track the students' progress the same way, but YDI, for example, says that 67 percent of the students in its mentoring program at Alamosa Elementary School improved their grades in at least one core subject last year.
        Sally Sosa, who runs YDI's three mentoring programs, said mentors fill a void for the many kids whose home lives don't support success in school.
        "There are a lot of issues the child may be going through. Are they going to go home and have something to eat? Are they going to go home and find dad beating on mom? Are they going to go home and find the family has been evicted or has to move? The last thing they may be thinking of is their math assignment," Sosa said.
        To become a mentor
        Big Brothers/Big Sisters 837-9223
        Big Brothers/Big Sisters has two mentoring programs. One is an academically-oriented program that asks adult mentors to spend an hour a week with a student at school. Mentors also are encouraged to build a personal bond and get involved in the student's life. The other program involves doing activities with youths, such as going to the park or a movie, the idea being to build personal relationships and provide adult guidance. That program requires a minimum of four hours a month. Both programs require a one-year commitment from mentors.
        ENLACE 277-9632
        ENLACE's mentorship program is for University of New Mexico undergraduate students. They are paid through a work/study program to spend 20 hours a week mentoring kids in one of three middle schools or six high schools. The mentors work with about 20 kids each. The mentoring consists of pulling children out of class for a few minutes a week to catch up on what's going on in their personal lives, and then a few hours after school each day helping students with homework or whatever else they may need help with.
        YDI 212-7346
        YDI has three mentoring programs; Alamosa Mentoring Program, Wise Men/Wise Women, and Mentoring Children of Promise. YDI requires a one-year commitment from mentors to spend four hours a month with the kids with whom they are matched. Wise Men and Women is based at about 20 public elementary schools around Albuquerque. The Alamosa Mentoring program is based at Alamosa Elementary School. For Mentoring Children of Promise, mentors work with children who have an incarcerated parent.
       

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