Achieving Student Success through Mentoring

When a student does not have parent support at home, how does this affect student achievement? As educators, when a parent does not support his/her child's education and it clearly shows through this student academically, what is our response?

Is the parent the blame for not showing interest, or is the student to blame for not following directions? What if the parent(s) spend their time working to provide for that student and that is all that they can give? What if that student can not focus academically because there is not a lack of support at home because the parents do not understand the content of your subject?

All of these questions forced me to change my relationships with students and parents. Answers to these questions also helped me realize that I could not help these students on my own, and that this was a school wide issue. When those in the community are willing to devote time to someone in need, in this case students who need someone to check on them, this directly affects student achievement.

I am proposing a mentor program for students who lack parent support. The student will check in with the mentor once a week and discuss academic and behavioral progression or digression. Students will also have a monthly meeting that will include their mentor, parents, counselor, and teacher to view logs of teacher recommendation and student progress.

The mentoring program will start with my students and I will monitor student achievement and academic ahievement in the classroom and propose that this become a school-wide initiative. I will ask for support from the administrative team and our campus improvement committee along with instructional specialists and counselors. Most importantly, I want to make sure that students have an active role in the program by receiving feedback on how to improve the program and on things that they would change.