Ep 201 | What’s it ACTUALLY like to mentor a child?

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We currently have about eleven students from my little forty-five-member Kwanis Club are also ment mentoring. And we're proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every child in Escambia County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support your child's success. The constraints of poverty can cause talented students to fall short of their academic potential, causing the cycle of hardship to play on repeat in communities like ours. My next guests are part of two different organizations working to prevent these students from falling through the cracks with support via mentorships and scholarships. One is the new student services coordinator for Take Stock in Children in Escambia County, and the other a retired Air Force Colonel and Big Lagoon Kawanis Club member. Today they're going to share how this partnership is supporting kids to succeed despite circumstance. Access advocates and confidence builders, Alex Bach and Dare Lias. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Okay, so I have a first question for both of you. I want you to weigh in, okay? Mentorship. Critical or ancillary? 1,000% critical. Oh, she was quick to the buzzer, Dare.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Not just critical for the students, critical for the mentors also, especially those of us that are up in our years. It gives us an opportunity to interact with young people that we normally wouldn't, and learn more about what their lives are about, and at the same time pass on this long history that I've lived.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Yeah, that's true. There's a bit of legacy. So what about for you? Who had an influence on you growing up?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Well, my family primarily. I was fortunate. I had four brothers and sisters and a mom and dad at home. I had a grandmother with uh twelve children. They all had children. So had had this large family, and they were all very supportive. But we were also very poor. We we did not consider ourselves poor at the time. Dad had a job, he worked in a factory just like everybody else in the industrial rust belt that I grew up in. But I had a great deal of support from them, but then I got more support from the church when they took me down to Otterbine College, and I knew that I couldn't afford to go there. I was gonna have to work wherever I went, and they got me a job as a fireman in the city and gave me a little bit of a scholarship, and I became a fireman for four years. So everybody in the fire department and the police department in Little Westerville, Ohio became my mentors.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Oh, I love that. And what about you, Alex? Who helped me?

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Yeah. Well, I had strong, strong parents at home that the assumption was that everybody has a purpose, and your point in your life is to go find it. They were wonderful. And then I had a particular English teacher in high school that was very powerful. And she was the one that didn't tolerate nonsense, even though she was funny. She loved mischief, but nonsense was a whole nother thing. And she was very motivating because she didn't accept anything less.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

I love that. And I love that it was a combination of people for both of you, which is such a take stock thing, right? In your newish role here. It's such a good fit. And so I thought I could give myself a pop quiz because it's been a while since we've featured Take Stock and Children for Scambia County on the show. And we might all need a refresher. So tell me how I do. Okay. So starting in sixth grade, middle school counselors send home applications with the students. The applications then are reviewed by a six-person committee, but students have to be considered financially eligible. And then when they pass through the six-person committee, then they're paired with a mentor, but must maintain good grades, attendance, and citizenship to remain in the program. And then upon graduation, they get that full four-year college scholarship.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

That's it. We do select from sixth and seventh grade, but other than that, you've got it all. Okay, I was on the money. You were. I hated to even say it, Meredith.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Well, how did Take Stock Ascambia and Big Lagoo and Kawanis Club end up partnering?

SPEAKER_02 4:43

That would be before my time because it's been 20 years. Oh wow. Before my time.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

I've been in the Kawanus Club almost 15 years. And when I first joined is when I first heard about Take Stock and met Sally Lee, your predecessor. Yes. Who also was motivator. Yes. And uplifted me and and encouraged me to get more involved. Once I became president of the club four or five years later, I doubled our scholarships because of another program that we do that we started to get a little raise a few more funds so we could afford it. And then uh for the past couple of years, we've been able to do three sponsorships take stock. I encourage our other Kauanians to become mentors, and we currently have about 11 students that that from my little 45-member Kwanis club. That's a lot. Also meant mentoring.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

We're proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Do you know how many scholarships have been funded by about 40? Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

So 40 kids from our community have gone on to a post-secondary education that probably wouldn't have been available to them, at least not with a lot of hardship to get there and a lot more time than it would have taken them. They have an opportunity to make a post-secondary choice of vocational technical school or four years of college or two years of college, and they can go on and create something that's a more focused life that suits who they are as individuals, that they probably wouldn't have had a chance to. In addition, the mentoring is the first thing that you asked about without the mentor. I don't want to say the money's useless, but I feel like it's wasteful. We're asking people, children, to step out of all that they know and become something else without giving them the tools with which to do it, if we do not provide a mentor.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

I think it's important to note that we're not talking about the 4.0 students. These are average kids with average grades, with a need. And in many cases, they don't have the level of family support or other local support that Alex and I had growing up. Many single families, some grandparents raising kids, you know, some very young parents stuck in that cycle of poverty. This is an opportunity to get these kids and lift them out of that for the rest of their life. We've had some amazing stories from previous recipients of our scholarship, would come to our meeting and tell their story. Sally would bring them. And you sit there with tears rolling down your face because when they talk about this one young lady that said, When I was in the sixth grade, I didn't know what the word scholarship meant. I didn't even think I was going to go to high school. You know, I I lived in a three-bedroom home with five adults, six kids, and three dogs. And she had just graduated and was starting graduate school and social work.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Wow. Wow. I can see why this partnership works. Because as you were saying, Alex, without the mentors, then it's an idea.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Then it's it's money, but money that can't buy everything. Right. And it can pay tuition, and that's kind of all it can provide. And without the support and confidence building and skills and other people, our families are amazing and they're doing everything they can. They're just very limited by what they have access to. So when we bring in another adult that can be a trusted friend and agree that this child has potential, the student, we call them all scholars with a capital S. We call our mentors mentors with a capital M because these are specific to take stock that all have the power and the fire of passion about education and success. And QANUS has been amazing. We have several organizations around town, but nobody has been more intense in the financial and the mentoring part. Their combination is inspiring. It inspires me every day. I cannot let down Dare.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

I was gonna say, I feel some competitive vibes with him. So I'm sure he's very happy to wear that badge. And you yourself, Dare, are mentoring what, your fourth student?

SPEAKER_00 8:59

I'm mentoring two students right now, an eighth grader and a tenth grader. Last year I mentored one and a half. I get through halfway with one. But yeah, the total that I've mentored is only about seven, I think.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Aaron Powell It's a one-year commitment, but most of our mentors continue year after year so that they see their student all the way through high school and then beyond.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Many, many stay in touch after. And that's actually saying a lot because I think one of the concerns people have with becoming a mentor is I don't know, like burnout slash an exit plan. Like if this is not working for me, I don't want to disappoint anyone. Also, though, a lot of adults are experiencing burnout. However, this could be a solution, I think, partially because it infuses meaning and legacy, as you pointed out, Dare, to that.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

I believe you don't know what you know until you share it with someone else. And sometimes that's just what we need to move beyond a burnout or us just being stuck for a second. And I hear that from mentors sometimes. Sharing their story has helped them realize that they do have things that they've contributed and created, or maybe it's time for me to look at my life in a different way. Most mentors say they know that they get more out of it than their student does. I know, right? And then the students will say, I couldn't have done it without my mentor.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Those are excellent points. The one word that is popping up in my head is commitment. You know, and that's what we ask of mentors, and I ask in the Qantas Club when I seek volunteers to mentor, is you have to be committed to show up because some of these children in their lives they don't have somebody that shows up. So that commitment and continuity is very important in their life. But it's also important to the mentor because that's how we're able to create these relationships. I mean the sophomore that I have right now, and he is not an academic wizard, but he's a great kid and he's a natural-born leader.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

I see him walking down the hall giving high fives to other students, and they're saying, Hey Bud, you know, uh, and I'm proud of I'm proud of that aspect. And I emphasize that to him that academics isn't everything. But to get where you want to go, you need education. Take stock is going to provide that for you. Once you get that education, you can move into those leadership roles in our community that we so dearly need right now.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

I love that. Okay, so as a veteran mentor, you sit down and say there someone's new, right? They sit down and they look at that little seventh grade face and they say what?

SPEAKER_00 11:52

We have a workbook that has a list of questions, and I started using, I'll use it forever. But they're simple things like what's your favorite food? What music do you like? We tell each other.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

So it's a two-side conversation, you're not just asking questions.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

And sometimes, and it has been frustrating for me because of my background flying airplanes, I'd say. Well d I like airplanes. Do you like airplanes? No. Well, I like to travel. What do you think? No, I don't want to travel. Then I go into sports. What sports do you follow? I don't follow sports. These are the seventh graders. By the time you're in the eighth grade, ninth grade, it starts changing. They start becoming honest. I know it's got to be intimidated. And my wife has told me that. They look at you as being a successful adult with a good career, and that intimidates them.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

A lot of our kids haven't had a one-on-one relationship with an adult that is two-way, besides with their parent. And oftentimes we're looking at very busy families, maybe with multiple jobs and multiple children, and there's not a lot of time to learn how to have that two-way communication with an adult. So they have one-way communication a lot with teachers, maybe their pastor or maybe people at church that they they speak with. But as far as establishing trust and a relationship with another adult, this is a new experience. And it is for a lot of kids, not even kids that are in our kids' demographic, so to speak, but a lot of children don't have the oomph. And so that's what we're working on, right? Soft skills. Soft skills are huge. And that's how we get to a place that when they go to college, they don't have to suffer the imposter syndrome that is so common, not just with kids at our income level, but kids all over the world and schools everywhere feel like they're not good enough, they don't belong there.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

So the students are also coached in how to interact in that moment. It's not just the mentors. No, we're working on that. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

It's so cool. When we start with the new student orientation, we could say this is what you can expect. This is what this is going to be like. Think about questions you might have. The first thing that they do is write a thank you note for their donor. So they know right off that there's somebody and they get to start thinking about what the scholarship means to them. And even at the age of 12, and you have kids that don't necessarily they've never thought about college before because they're 12 for starters. And secondly, maybe a lot of people in their community go to college. So it gives them a chance to start getting that process going in their head that this is special and it they have an opportunity. But that can also be really intimidating and overwhelming. Absolutely. They have to get used to themselves having relationships with people other than kids that look just like them.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Well, that's so important and so key because not only is the student given an opportunity to learn, but an opportunity to practice. And that's major. And I can totally see through the picture that you're painting how a student would also really understand oh, this is my shot. This is my opportunity. It's an important moment. Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

The biggest challenge we have is when we come across a student who's overwhelmed by that opportunity. And it's too much. And so we're really working on finding a way to bridge that. Because sometimes we don't find out until too late. And they've already made up their mind and they're not going to college. They're not doing anything. They don't want their scholarship anymore. And it's really a matter of being too much. We have to back up and say, how can we help the student not feel the intensity? Because you don't have to decide when you're 13 what you want to do for the rest of your life. That's a really big question. I was with a mentee the other day, and I said, we had been talking about music and all these other things. And I said, next week we talk about college. And they looked at me and said, I don't want to talk about college. I didn't even want to talk about high school. And I was like, you know what? You're right. That was a wrong on my part. Next week, let's talk about things that might be fun to do when you're older.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Oh, I love the way that you reframed it.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

And then it was like, I want to go to art school. And I was like, now we're talking.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

But I I get it was too big, right? It was, it was way too big to manage in that moment until we reframed it to something that made more sense to the brain of an eighth grader.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

So tell me about the requirements, financial eligibility, good grades, attendance, and citizenship. What are the specifics for those qualifiers? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

For the financial eligibility piece, the amount for a two-person family, let's just start with that, for a two-person family. So a single parent and a dependent child that's applying for the program is about $29,500 is the maximum. And then for each family member that is added, add about $10,000. So, and then when you get to eight, then it's $7,000 per additional member. So it goes by the tens. It's a tough amount of money. We often wonder how everybody gets to school with, you know, shoes and lunch. Yeah. And so what about the grades? Grades. We look for kids with a 2.0 or better. We don't always go for the 4.0 student. We're looking for kids that could fall through the cracks that have potential, but maybe they need that guide. Maybe the mentoring is the piece that they're missing. But we also look at kids that have a 4.0, and maybe there's a lot of challenges going on at home. Maybe they have an incarcerated parent or a grandparent living at home that is ill or in hospice care, things that are going to potentially put them at risk for struggling with their academics. And we have some students that already have a waiver through other circumstances in their lives, so that college will be managed, but we know that a mentor would be a great opportunity for them. So we really try to cross all the spectrum that, like Dare said, you don't have to be an academic wizard to be academically capable and have all the other characteristics that you need to be able to provide for yourself, your family, and your community. So we want to find those.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

One thing that I'd I'd like to expand on that Alex talked about. She said she was going to talk about college. We mentors are not knowledgeable, but we have resources that are provided by Take Stock and Children websites. And I I go to them, I look at them, I don't come in there like and talk to the student like I'm an expert on this. I steer them and I'll make copies of pages out of some of these websites to career opportunities through Florida Shines and through college application processes and those things, which I guarantee you 90% of we mentors, except for a few that have been doing a long time, are pretty ignorant on these issues, especially when we start. But our knowledge grows. And sometimes when I have a meeting with my mentor, all we talk about is the uh Super Bowl, you know, for that day. You know, we can wear them out. I I learned that early on because I was following the workbook, hitting it point by point.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

And I started You were doing that Navy colonel move.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yeah, I I started getting some nonverbal feedback that this didn't take the right approach. Hey, today, what'd you do? What'd you do this week? Yeah, what'd you do that you're proud of? What'd you do that you're not proud of? What'd you learn from it? You know? Um and the younger the student, the less feedback I get, you know, when I ask those kind of questions. But like the sophomore, I mean, the bell rings and we gotta quit. The other guy, you know, he's young. He's progressed past the yes-no stage, but this is his first year, and I'm still building that relationship. Towards the end of the year, I I think we'll get there.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Oh yeah. Yeah, and a lot of times, you know, we say, if if they're not getting a great response, take a deck of Uno cards and play Uno. And usually something like that or drawing, something like that can stimulate the conversation. But the most important thing, and and Dare hit on this earlier, is consistency. Some of our students have been disappointed by other adults in their lives. And this is a great opportunity for them to believe that someone is going to stick around. And the number one thing, no matter how your student is responding to you in a in a session, the number one thing is just that you're there. I remember reading when my kids were teenagers about potted plant parenting. They don't want you to butt in, but they don't want you to butt out either. So you're a potted plant. And sometimes with the kids, you're playing cards with them. So you're there for 45 minutes and you play cards. And then you say, okay, see you next week. And you know what? The next week you show up. And little by little you start getting more of a smirk or a, hey, I was hoping you were coming, or I'm sorry we had to miss last week. And you start recognizing that they have value in the sessions, whether you feel like it or not.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Oh, I love that. Yeah. So going back to some of the conditions to maintain that. I have a couple questions. So attendance and good citizenship, what do those mean? How do we quantify them?

SPEAKER_02 20:55

So we stick with a 2.0 and 2.0 meaning a C or better in every class, not just a 2.0. Has to be a C or better in every class. And then we require no more than five unexcused absences a quarter. And we require no out-of-school suspension and obviously crime, crime and drug-free. And you can have no more than two, no shows for your mentor meetings. If you cross any of those in a quarter, you go into our probation system. And the first level is warning, and then we have probation one, two, and three. And three is last chance. So you have a full year to go all the way through the probation system and then bring yourself all the way back out because it goes by quarters. So if someone gets all the way to P3 at the end of the year, so they've had a problem with one of those categories or all of them. Every quarter of the year they're at P3. So they start the following year and they have an opportunity to go up to P2. You have to climb back up the ladder. So that's how we make sure that we're all understanding that we have responsibilities to ourselves and to our program, that our mentors are. Are showing up for us and we need to show up for them and for ourselves. We have a wonderful college readiness coach who has been with the program for 26 years, and she meets with every student multiple times a quarter to be sure that they're on track academically. If they're having any behavioral challenges, okay, what do we need to do? And who do I need to reach out to? How can we help? We try to help them find tutoring when it's necessary. We have just started a it's limited, but a really great in-kind donation from Mathnasium. So we'll be able to provide some, yes, it's a it's in the works right now. It's it's committed on both sides, but we're working out all the details for that. So that's very exciting. Wow. And because the tutoring is our biggest challenge. We don't have enough tutors in the school district to help. We've got a couple of students, so it's peer-to-peer virtual tutoring that's monitored by one of our staff members. But Trio, which is an organization federally based that has lost funding. So it's been cut back by about 60%, I think, and the number of hours they can provide to our students for tutoring. If you're a bus rider, there's not very many opportunities at school because almost all are before and after school. And if you're a bus rider, you can't work on that schedule. So being able to provide that kind of tutoring. So we are working towards that, always looking for new opportunities and ways to be sure that our kids have the academic support because our mentors are not tutors. Some of them are, I can do that. Others are like, oh, please don't make me think.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Or some of it, it might depend on the topic, right? Absolutely. So don't come to me for math. It's right. I need English communication. Shocking. I know. I I got you. Right. Same. So I have a question about the financial piece. If a family is boosted economically and suddenly they're making more money, does the child get kicked out of the program?

SPEAKER_02 23:49

No. You are deemed eligible at the time of application, and then you remain eligible throughout. Just because someone is suddenly making another $10,000 a year does not mean that they're going to be in a position. I mean, college is crazy. Yeah. And they have other things they need to do, right? There's other parts of their lives that need improvement. So we are absolutely behind that student. From the moment they become our scholar, we are with them and they are with us until high school graduation and beyond. We're working with a student right now, helping with a few things who it's has one class left.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

I think that's great because then you see your economic situation as a circumstance and not an identity.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Absolutely. We always try to make sure that students understand and then the people that are learning about our program understand that poverty isn't a character flaw. Poverty is exactly what you said. It's a circumstance. And sometimes it's a stuck circumstance. And what we can do is provide an opportunity, an avenue for a child to have a key to more doors. It doesn't solve all your problems to go to college, but it does allow you to open more doors when you do get out. And it gives you a broader way to think of yourself and the world around you, the things that you're capable of. In addition, it also brings hope to a family that maybe didn't have any. And it allows them to feel like they have a chance. It also takes a worry off the parent's brain, knowing that there's another adult, it's multiple, me, Jeannie, the college readiness coach, and the mentor. It's a team. We tell them all the time, we are the village. We are here to back you up. Parents and all. I the other day I got a mess. The mentor and the student are texting. We have a controlled app. And if they're texting, and there's a vocabulary that is not acceptable. And it's not just your average words, it's all kinds of words, right? They can be the word shoot is probably the ones that we would see the most. And it's I'll I'll shoot you a text later, or let's shoot for Thursday, but you can't say shoot because that triggers an announcement to me. Well, I had a student who is a sophomore at Washington. He's absolutely brilliant, he's so funny. And he didn't say shoot, he said one of the other, one of the adult words. And it was a like an oh no, right? So I called his mom and I said, I just got this alert and this is what happened. Do you want me to handle that? Or would you like to handle that? She said, Yeah, all it will be is one more time of me saying, please watch your mouth. So I sent him and I said, Hey, I know you know lots of words and all different kinds. But as a Text Talk scholar, our expectation is that you will only choose, you will not choose the, what did I call it, the salty adult choices and something along those lines. And he messaged me back and he said, Roger, I'm I'm good. No more. And I love that. Glad we're on the same thing. I was like, think about the way you're representing yourself and you want to be perceived. Have a great weekend. So partnering, and and I CC'd her, BC'd her, the mom. And I love that as a as a as a parent, that there are other people out there that I can help make that process easier.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

As we wrap up, Dare, I want to hear from you again about what you get out of this. Because, you know, you've had this long career. You've had two long careers, and you know, a father, and you know, you do all the stuff in the community. I mean, I'm sure you could take up golf. Like there's so many other things you could do. Why does this matter to you?

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Well, well, first off, I thought when I retired, retired, I'd be cutting bait and fishing all the time. And my next door neighbor said, Hey, come to a Koanas meeting. And I started realizing that I'd been busy all my life, that I needed to start paying back. So I got involved in several of the programs that our club does. And take stock really grabbed hold of me. At first because I kind of came from a similar environment, needed help, needed somebody to give me a hand up. And when I became a mentor, that's when I thought, no, this is feet on the ramp, you know, boots on the ground. Now I can put my money where my mouth is, you know. And it's worked out that way. The biggest thing I get out of it is the satisfaction that I'm fulfilling an opportunity to do our quantus motto, which is improve the world one child at a time. And that's I think we are, even for the students that don't make it completely through the program. They're still my friends and or some that move out of the area, like I said earlier. I've made friends with teenage kids that I would never even interact with and uh learn more about how great kids are today. You know, if we watch the media, you know, you think that all children are juvenile delinquents, and that is definitely not the case. Yeah, there's a few bad apples, but there's probably a reason for it. And maybe we can correct that reason through take stock, even if the student doesn't make it all the way through the take stock program. By meeting with a mentor, someone telling them they're important. Don't let anybody tell you you can't do anything. When I go to bed at night, I feel pretty comfortable that I've I've accomplished something, versus just trying to fish and not catching anything.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

Well, that's how fishing is, but absolutely the juice is worth a squeeze. It's the best it's unbelievable how much of an impact you make in 45 minutes a week.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

I love that. I'm gonna link everything in the show notes, and hopefully you will be flooded with interest and volunteers.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

I hope so. We'll be looking for between 25 and 45 mentors for this year. We typically have an 89 percent return rate, but we have 25 more students coming in this year. Okay. So we'll have to place those, and then there are always some that have to go. We have 189 students in the program. So if you you know it's 11 percent can't come back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

So And there really are no prerequisites for a mentor. You know, I don't think we have any high school dropouts mentoring, but we may.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

There's not I don't know that we do either. Mostly we want to be sure that they've either been through the process, which has changed drastically since any of us were in college, or they've helped somebody else get through the process. Just so they can be an additional hand, but it isn't the requirement. No. The requirement is that you can show up and that you uh care about another human being's success. Yeah. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

So there's one other requirement. We are non-denominational, apolitical. We do not carry our ideologies with us into that room with the child. I really emphasize then. And uh if we do, and and Alex finds out about it, you won't be a mentor very long.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

That's exactly right. We want to help children.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Or I find out about it if they're one of my Kowani on the street.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Absolutely. Yeah. We want kids to be able to think. That's what we're we're gonna help them think for themselves. But our opinion doesn't matter on those things. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Okay, listeners, challenge issued. We'll see. Will it be a challenge accepted? Thank you both again so much for everything that you do. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Thank you. Hopefully, the word gets out.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Absolutely. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and share. Voices United in Education is a production of Scambia County Public Schools.