69ý

Student Well-Being

Del. Governor Finds Funding, Time for Mentoring Efforts

By Joetta L. Sack — October 22, 1997 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Email Copy URL

Wilmington, Del.

On any school day, volunteer mentors can be found in the quiet, brightly decorated room tucked at the end of the hallway at Warner Elementary School, reading and tutoring and chatting with their assigned students.

Each Monday morning, Gov. Thomas R. Carper slips into the group to mentor Darrel Burton, a shy, soft-spoken 5th grader.

The pair often read together, work on math or word problems, or talk about Darrel’s family--four brothers and his mother.

“He seems to have blossomed a bit,” Gov. Carper said of Darrel after last week’s session. “His mom, teacher, and counselor report that his confidence is up.”

Mentoring is a cause that Delaware’s governor wants more people to take up. He signed on in 1993, his first year as governor, when two staff members brought the students they mentored to his office for lunch. He was so impressed with the students that he volunteered to work at the public elementary school that his two sons, now ages 7 and 9, attend.

“I see every day ... students who need a good role model, and teachers desperate for help,” he said.

The Democratic governor is so enthusiastic about mentoring that he has persuaded the state legislature--of which one house is GOP-controlled and the other Democratic--to pay $500,000 for fiscal 1998 for student mentoring programs, up from $350,000 in fiscal 1997. The overall education budget in fiscal 1997 was $609 million.

Volunteer mentoring is a cause that has attracted attention from state officials across the ideological spectrum. Govs. Pete Wilson of California and John Engler of Michigan, both Republicans, are also mentors and advocates for mentoring programs, which seek to increase student achievement and self esteem.

Biggest Booster

Gov. Carper is the National Governors’ Association’s most vocal mentoring proponent, and he has spoken to the group several times about his experiences, said Patty Sullivan, an NGA spokeswoman. “You don’t have a conversation with him for very long without him talking about this,” she said.

Help One Student to Succeed, or HOSTS, the national program in which Mr. Carper and most of the Delaware mentors participate, provides structured lesson plans and orientations for volunteers, most of whom work one hour each week.

Kathy Christie, a policy analyst with Education Commission of the States in Denver, said more states are looking at tutoring and mentoring programs to help at-risk students improve academic and social skills. The HOSTS program is popular because of its training and its structured approach. “That takes a lot of fear out of it for people,” Ms. Christie said.

Finding the Time

Gov. Carper has taken his crusade to Delaware businesses, asking them to allow employees to spend about an hour each week mentoring an at-risk child at a local school.

One nearby company, at his urging, has provided 140 employee-mentors to Warner Elementary, a school in downtown Wilmington with 930 students in grades 3-5. The school’s mentoring coordinator, Ann Wilson, said she barely has enough time to keep up with the training and has recently expanded the mentoring area from one room to two.

The governor’s goal is to have 11,000 volunteers--one for every 10 of the state’s 110,000 students--by 2000. More than 5,000 volunteers have signed up as of this year, including several members of the governor’s staff and state legislators.

Mentoring ties into other education-related themes of the Carper administration. For example, the governor wants businesses to get involved in his school technology initiative, and he plans to encourage mentors to take students to work with them one day a year, so the students can see how their education is relevant to work.

Ms. Christie cautioned that state officials and other executives might have a hard time keeping a mentoring commitment because of their demanding schedules. “You have to show up, because those kids count on you being there,” she said.

That hasn’t been a deterrent for Mr. Carper, who has missed only a few Monday-morning mentoring appointments in the past two years. He often tells business leaders, “When a governor says, ‘As busy as I am, I can find time to do it,’ then you can, too.”

“People find that challenge hard to duck,” he said, adding that so far, every business he has approached has signed on.

And mentors get a sense of fulfillment in their lives, he added. “Maybe in my next life I’ll come back as a teacher,” he said with a smile.

Related Tags:

Events

School & District Management Webinar Crafting Outcomes-Based Contracts That Work for Everyone
Discover the power of outcomes-based contracts and how they can drive student achievement.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School & District Management Webinar
Harnessing AI to Address Chronic Absenteeism in 69ý
Learn how AI can help your district improve student attendance and boost academic outcomes.
Content provided by 
School & District Management Webinar EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?
What issues are keeping K-12 leaders up at night? Join us for EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.

Read Next

Student Well-Being Download Traumatic Brain Injuries Are More Common Than You Think. Here's What to Know
Here's how educators can make sure injured students don't fall behind as they recover.
1 min read
Illustration of a female student sitting at her desk and holding hands against her temples while swirls of pencils, papers, question marks, stars, and exclamation marks swirl around her head.
iStock/Getty
Student Well-Being How Teachers Can Help LGBTQ+ 69ý With Post-Election Anxiety
LGBTQ+ crisis prevention hotlines have seen a spike in calls from youth and their families.
6 min read
Photo of distraught teen girl.
Preeti M / Getty
Student Well-Being 69ý Are Eerily Quiet About the Election Results, Educators Say
Teachers say students' reactions to Trump's win are much more muted than in 2016.
6 min read
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump greets Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump greets Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, at an election night watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Evan Vucci/AP
Student Well-Being Student Journalists Want to Cover Politics. Not Everyone Agrees They Should
Student journalists are grappling with controversial topics—a lesson in democracy that's becoming increasingly at risk for pushback.
7 min read
Illustration of a paper airplane made from a newspaper.
DigitalVision Vectors