Tanapag school looking for volunteers to mentor students

Tanapag Elementary School is looking for volunteers who can provide additional adult support for its students amid plans to launch early next year a school-based mentoring program at Saipan’s smallest public school.

School counselor Shimiko Montgomery announced yesterday at the Rotary Club of Saipan general membership meeting that they are looking for adult volunteers without criminal records for their school-based mentoring program, which will start by the second week of January 2012.

Deadline to submit mentor applications is on Nov. 18 to allow them to start their “matching process,” she said.

Montgomery said the program is modeled after the Big Brothers Big Sisters, the largest donor and volunteer supported mentoring network in the U.S., and is an upshot of their brainstorming process on what the community can do to help students deal with emotional, behavioral, and academic issues.

“One thing that we definitely know is that if [the students] have a lot of emotional issues, it equals a low academic achievement,” said Montgomery.

She noted that Tanapag Elementary School, which has 197 students from kindergarten to 6th grade, has almost 80 percent of its students eligible for the free meal school program and has been identified by the CNMI Public School System as one of five “turnaround schools,” which means it does not meet the academic goals and standards of PSS.

At present, Montgomery said only 34 percent of students in the CNMI are able to score at or above the 50th percentile on the nationwide SAT10 test, with only 39 percent of the benchmarks at or above standard and that Standards Based Assessment has been stagnant at around 40 percent for the past seven years.

A youth-risk behavior survey last year showed that 40 percent of high school students “felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that they stopped doing some usual activities during the past 12 months,” Montgomery said, while 34 percent of middle school students reported that “they seriously considered attempting suicide in the past 12 months.”

Among the top issues that they deal with at the Tanapag Elementary School, Montgomery said, are low motivation, aggression, and truancy.

“Our youth definitely need caring and consistent relationships with adults to be able to navigate their way through adolescence. That we know. Research had shown that,” said Montgomery.

According to her, many of their students come from households with single parents, parents who are off-island, have passed away, or are incarcerated.

“We do have a lot of students that come from homes that can’t provide caring and consistent relationships for them. That’s why we’re starting a school-based mentoring program,” said Montgomery, adding that the program aims to be a “prevention,” not an intervention.

Montgomery said that the 15 students referred to the program will be matched with any of the mentors based on the likes, dislikes, and personalities, among others, of both parties. “We need as many [mentor] applicants as possible so that we can find the best matches for these students,” she said.

The program will involve the mentor meeting for an hour with their mentees, with structured activities facilitated by Montgomery once every two weeks until June 2012, which is equivalent to 10 sessions.

Montgomery said they highly discourage pulling out in the middle of the program since it will do “significant damage” to the student. “These students are kids that most likely don’t have a dependable relationship at home,” she said.

The counselor also noted that the students’ parents, who have been receptive of the program, will play “a big part” in the mentor selection process for their children so they “are not being left out of this whole thing.” “I think that’s very important so that they understand where we’re going and that we’re not replacing them,” she added.

The students, Montgomery said, “will make the same mistake every time” which is why mentors “cannot expect to see dramatic changes because they’re very slim.” “But you will see slight changes and that really is all we’re hoping for.”

“If this is successful, we will build upon it because the outcomes have been so drastic in other public school systems that we really have high hopes for this program. But of course, the key to this is volunteers.”

For an application packet or for more information, call 237-3177 or email shimiko.montgomery@cnmipss.org.