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Last time (10/10/08) “School Stuff” described the concept of a student mentoring team at school and how kids and staff can be involved in the selection process for the team. This time we’ll add the steps of student expectations, and a student commitment letter along with summer training ideas.
It’s now time to meet with the team members chosen by your student body, staff and administration. It is already a given that these kids want to be of help at school. You can now send home the student agreement letter that spells out the help aspects of your program. A timely time for this is late spring.
Your letter should begin congratulatory, specify a summer training date, require a parent signature, and be returned by mid-May. The summer training will involve some three hours. The ideal scheduling of the training is late July/early August just prior to the official kick-off of fall sports practices.
In this example, the trainees are eighth-graders that will be helping the orientation of incoming sixth-graders to your building. Our program has had good luck with scheduling the last Thursday in July for the morning long training.
You can have a pre-selected group of students (student government kids) know prior to the end of the school year that their job will be to remind call/e-mail/instant communicate to the members of the student mentor team regarding the July training day. They should make these reminder contacts a week before and then again the day before the day. These same kids can then e-mail you or a designated staff member that all kids have been notified and will be at the late July training day. We have experienced near perfect attendance with this kid-led procedure.

Student Mentor Expectations: Keep it simple. In this student orientation day example, the kid’s main focus is helping an incoming grade to be less anxious and more jacked-up about beginning a new school year. Always, always, always, they lead with being nice to their younger schoolmates. If they do this part well they can’t mess it up.
The training day will focus on group activities that focus on “getting to know you” and “getting to know your school.” The kids are trained in how to help incoming students with the three L’s, lockers, lunch, and not getting lost.
These are the things that most kids transitioning to a new or next school building want to know.
When your “student orientation day” arrives and you have trained upperclassmen, focused on being welcoming and nice, focused on sharing school stuff they already know (lockers, lunch, lost), you can’t hardly mess it up-good stuff!
“Don’t you worry About a thing” (Hit single (1973) from one of Pop music’s great ones-Stevie Wonder), it’s a “Beautiful Day” (Hit single (2000) from one of pop music’s great groups U2) is the secure thought that kids helping kids can bring to your school program.
Good vibrations. …

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