In his heart, Robert Andrzejewski knew that mentoring helps kids do better academically and feel more positive about school.
Now, educators and social service agencies are gathering the numbers to prove it, statistics that will assure businesses that encourage employees to mentor that their resources are being used wisely—and also inspire others to support mentoring.
“Businesses and other organizations are interested in the bottom line, so we had to establish impact indicators to show we aren’t being wasteful,” said Andrzejewski, executive director of the Delaware Mentoring Council (DMC), a coalition of mentor programs, businesses, government agencies and organizations committed to providing mentors to children in need throughout the state.
At Big Brothers Big Sisters of Delaware (BBBSDE), the agency partners with individuals, churches and businesses, including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Delaware Federal Credit Union. Mentors work with close to 1,200 children both in schools and in the community, helping with homework or school projects. They also talk about strategies for getting along with others and the importance of a good education.
“People want to know that their efforts are making a difference,” said Mary Fox, executive director of BBBSDE. “That’s why we are documenting outcomes.”
The organization tests children before they enter the program on measurable elements such as classroom behavior and academics. The results are compared with tests given a year later, as well as teacher evaluations on elements that are more difficult to quantify, such as enthusiasm for learning.
More than 60 percent of children are getting better grades, Fox says, “and they also show gains in attitude, behavior and trust.”
- Howard High School of Technology senior Shaun Griffin (right) and his mentor Chuck Holdeman (left).(photo courtesy: Chuck Holdeman)
Chuck Holdeman, a bassoonist who lives in Newark, has mentored 17-year-old Shaun Griffin of Wilmington for six years.
“I have children of my own and I speak to Shaun as I would my own son,” he said. “To me, mentoring is asking the right questions so I can help Shaun reach his goals.”
Over the years, Holdeman would take his young charge out to eat or they would cook together at his home. He taught Griffin to play tennis and to improvise on the piano. They played chess.
“We are both terrible at chess, so we are evenly matched,” Holdeman said.
When Griffin, the youngest of four children, first met his Big Brother he was in middle school and struggling with both academics and his attitude toward school. Over time, his grades improved dramatically, from Ds to As. Now a senior at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington, he plans to go to college and become an engineer.
“Having a Big Brother made a big difference in my life,” Griffin said. “We talked about what I would have to do in school if I wanted to have a good job some day.”
Griffin’s niece and nephew are now in the program, as well. Still, there aren’t enough mentors to meet the demand.
“We need more male mentors, especially,” Fox said. “We have boys on a waiting list.”
Mentoring began picking up steam in Delaware in the 1990s, during the administration of Gov. Tom Carper, now a U.S. senator.
“When I was governor, I challenged Delawareans to become mentors and they did, more than 10,000 of them – including me,” Carper said. “Mentoring helps students realize their potential and makes them better students and better people. It also helps mentors understand the importance of serving others, and there is no greater joy in life than serving others.”
Carper continues to mentor, meeting once a week with a student who attends Prestige Academy in Wilmington.
Demand for mentoring has increased dramatically in recent years. Andrzejewski attributes that to cuts in school budgets, pressure from time-starved working parents and an increase in single-parent households.
“We have to fill in the missing gaps to give kids some confidence,” he said.
A former superintendent of the Red Clay School District, Andrzejewski mentors a hearing-impaired boy. He is working with Lt. Gov. Matt Denn, DMC’s honorary chair, and Carla Markell, the state’s first lady, to advocate for schools to create staff positions for full-time mentoring coordinators.
Currently, the majority of coordinators are paid through grants or contributions from corporations, he says. Some schools are making do with a part-time coordinator or are doing without one.
“We need to establish sustainable funding for mentoring programs,” Andrzejewski said. “It should not be a grant that comes and goes.”
The value of one on one: Measuring mentoring’s impact in Delaware.
Delaware Mentoring Council (DMC) Executive Director Robert Andrzejewski discusses mentoring in the First State.
Connecting Generations, a statewide mentoring group, has placed 10 mentor coordinators at schools in Wilmington and Dover through an AmeriCorps grant.
“Without a designated person, mentoring is something that can quickly fall through the cracks,” said Richard Kapolka, the group’s executive director and a former principal at Christiana and Seaford high schools.
In the current academic year, the group has placed 1,400 mentors at 75 schools throughout Delaware, including Frederick Douglass Stubbs Elementary in Wilmington, where 25 mentors from the nearby law firm of Young Conaway Stargatt and Taylor work with children.
For the 209-2010 school year, a Connecting Generations survey reported that 96 percent of parents saw improvement in their child’s self confidence; 74 percent of teachers reported the grades of mentored children improved.
At East Side Charter School in Wilmington, 110 mentors spend an hour each week with 100 students.
“Some mentors aren’t able to be there every time, so they partner with another mentor and share a student,” said Ashley Widdoes, who coordinates the program.
Widdoes is employed by Communities in Schools of Delaware, a nonprofit group devoted to helping at-risk students succeed in school. A portion of her salary is paid by Barclays Bank, which has partnered with the school to provide 60 volunteer mentors.
The school brought a mentor coordinator on board after Barclays employees expressed concern that teachers often didn’t have time to prepare planned activities for mentors.
At East Side, the program is structured through the creation of things like a book club, in which all mentors and students work with the same book for an hour. Reading also provides an opportunity to work with kids who need extra help with vocabulary and vowel sounds.
“Barclays paid for the books, which are special books just for reading with mentors,” Widdoes said.
In the last academic year, 76 percent of mentored children at East Side showed academic improvement; 63 percent had better attendance records.
What the numbers don’t show is how much mentoring has helped inspire children to look forward to school.
Widdoes shares the story of a young girl, who arrived at school, late and breathless, just before her mentoring session.
“She had missed the bus and her mom wasn’t able to drive her to school, so she called around until she found an aunt who could take her,” she recalled.
“This little girl did not want to miss meeting with her mentor because it is such a special time.”
