The 2015-2016 school year is officially in full swing, and we are off to a great start! Our mentors have had a chance to get to know the kids they will be working with for the year. They are thrilled to see how enthusiastic their kids have been to excel in school, and we can’t wait to see how they continue to improve. What makes these changes take root in their lives is the way our mentors form long-lasting relationships with their students.
Center Spotlight: Crystal Lake Middle School
Our first featured center for this school year is Crystal Lake. The center serves 52 students with 17 returning from last year. It’s incredible to see how each center develops its own unique personality during the school year. Crystal Lake’s area director, Wolkenzye, said “the Crystal Lake center is a really awesome group of kids.” The kids are not only respectful, but they are highly motivated to do their homework and often end up competing against each other to see who finishes first.
Aaliyah
Youseline
Meet Youseline. She is a first-year mentor at our Crystal Lake center, and she is studying human development and family studies at Nova in hopes of becoming a teacher. The thing she loves most about being a mentor is that it allows her to counteract the negativity that her students are exposed to on a daily basis. Being a mentor lets her be a positive role model for her students and give them hope for the future.
Firewall Upgrades Technology
For this school year, we now provide each of our mentors with a tablet equipped with our very own app that allows the mentors to streamline the process of tracking student grades and progress. This allows our mentors to spend more time focusing on their students, rather than on filling out paperwork. Another improvement is the addition of fingerprint technology at each of our centers, which allows us to speed up the check-in and check-out process and better ensure the students’ safety.
