Mentoring initiative makes a difference; Texas: Spring Branch Independent School District.

Positive role models are serving as mentors in Houston to help students at risk of not graduating from high school.

The mentor program, which resulted in Spring Branch Independent School District being named a state winner in the 2006 National Civic Star Award competition, was a response to a wide array of demographic, socioeconomic and academic-performance issues.

At several district high schools, for example, as many as 50 percent of students are ninth-grade repeaters, rates for students attending college are as low as 55 percent and gang activity is present. Such circumstances facing students limit their exposure to opportunities and reduce their motivation, interest in the future, civic pride and academic success.

The Spring Branch Mentoring Model, introduced in 2003, grew in its first two years from 40 mentors to more than 160 on three of the highest-need campuses. During the 2005-2006 school year, the program was expected to expand to three new campuses and 300 mentors.

Mentors are recruited in groups from supporting companies and community-based organizations and report to campus and community-based coordinators. Their backgrounds are screened, and they receive mandatory training and ongoing support to help them influence students' academic and social success in life. About 95 percent of mentors, who spend at least one hour per week with children, stay with the program after they start.

Students choose to participate. Two group get-togethers help in matching mentors with mentees. Other activities include a mentor and family dinner, where parents can meet their child's mentor: community-service field trips, projects and celebrations throughout the school year. The program has about 12 partners, including businesses, churches and a college alumni society. Partners provide mentors, program organization, marketing and promotion, community awareness of youth issues and opportunities for volunteerism, community service and career exploration.

Students participate in weekly dialogues and school-based experiences with positive role models who help them build self-esteem, solve problems and make good choices. Nearly all mentored students have avoided gang involvement.

School personnel say that the program is helping to change their school cultures, resulting in fewer disciplinary problems. Stronger, more-respectful relationships with family members and parents have also been reported.

Student survey data indicates that 95 percent of mentees have found that the mentor experience has helped them become better students. After the second year, the waiting list for students requesting mentors had doubled and no students had dropped out of the program. Six additional schools have expressed interest in starting mentor programs. Community partners have provided more than $50,000 in financial support earmarked specifically for the mentoring initiative.

The school district's Partnerships and Volunteers Office received a $15,000 grant to support the mentor program expansion and implemented a mentor program task force in Spring 2005. Plans include the district working with nationally recognized experts to build the capabilities of administrators, mentors and mentor coordinators. The task force will also develop additional mentor materials and coordinator manuals, set up a mentor web site and develop a marketing campaign.

For more information, contact Superintendent Duncan Klussman at Spring Branch Independent School District, 955 Campbell Rd., Houston, Texas 77024, or call [phone]. [e-mail] is Klussman's e-mail address.