Student Mentoring Committee

October 2, 2002

Members present: J. Mark Beaty (Chairman), Fran Bishop, Karen Dickson, Chris Dillie, Janet Freed, Molly Goff, Bonnie Groharing, Rebecca Koerner, Alan Pugeda

Member absent: John Van Fleet

Mary Mahan-Deatherage and Jane Karow from the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization of the YWCA shared with us their community based program and efforts to start a school based program for children ages 6-12. They would like high school students, ages 16-18, to be big brothers or sisters to younger children. They emphasized the importance of the one to one relationship and the need for a yearlong commitment. They do reference and background checks on mentors and interview the mentor and mentee before a match is made. Nationally the school based Big Brother Big Sister program is now being emphasized. Meetings take place at the school during school hours.

The committee is most interested in having upperclassmen mentor underclassmen. We set a target date of the beginning of next school year for implementing our program. Schools who are doing this use homeroom periods for meetings between mentors and mentees. We need to see if there is an alternative way to schedule meetings. We felt that we would need a staff member to head the program and that the person would need to be paid a supplemental. We need to see how the township can join with us in establishing the program. We are also interested in seeing how our program can connect with Challand's if the Big Brother Big Sister Organization is able to find enough mentors to start their school based mentoring program.

Janet Freed volunteered to bring treats to the next meeting, Oct. 23.