Running head: Mentor Program

Participatory Action Research Project: Mentor Program Tamara Lee Pepperdine University July 2013

Running head: Mentor Program

Mentor Program

Animo Phillis Wheatley (APW) is a take over Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) school in South Los Angeles. As a former LAUSD school, it was known as Henry Clay and became the 4th lowest performing middle school in the entire state of California. After years of Program Improvement, the superintendent awarded Henry Clay to Green Dot Public Schools, a charter management organization that has been operating charters within LAUSD for about a decade. Green Dot immediately broke the school into two separate schools with separate staff but shared facilities allowing for a more intimate experience for the middle school students. The new name, Phillis Wheatley, came about after a search for someone who would represent the two major demographics, African American and Hispanic. Phillis Wheatley was a slave who was brought here not knowing English. She not only learned how to speak English but became the first African American every to be published. After two years as a school, APW has 578 students with 49% Hispanic, 42% African American, 7% not reported, 1% mixed, and 1% other. The school has a high percentage of significant subgroups. 20% of the students have not be reclassified and are still considered English Language Learners despite most of them having been in the California school system the entire time. 19% of the student population has been identified Special Education with another subgroup having Special Day Class. 70% of the families are socio-economically disadvantages, and all students receive free and reduced lunch. There are 27 teachers of which only 15% have more than 10 years experience. Almost two thirds, 63% have less than 3 years

Running head: Mentor Program

teaching experience. The principal started as a first year principal the year the school became APW and has just finished his second year. As the former Henry Clay, the school saw an extraordinarily large transiency rate that fluctuated between thirty and fifty percent. The community is surrounded by single family homes and many of the long time families within them become foster families. Some students take the bus from youth group homes. It has been said 30% of the student body has been in foster care at some point in their lives. The transiency numbers add to the compelling need as it is difficult to show achievement when students have not been consistently attending school. Another compelling need is the reason for the takeover. As Henry Clay, the schools API was a dismal 553. After one year, the staff of mostly beginning teachers raised the API 41 points, just shy of 600. In addition to the high needs population, the low student scores, and the transiency rate, the school experiences a large share of behavior difficulties. On a randomly selected single day, the office received 65 referrals, 27 administrator or counselor parent phone calls were made, 15 students received lunch detention, and 5 parent conferences were held based on behavior concerns. The students need to be in the classroom and not the office in order to increase student achievement. The school does offer a positive behavior support plan but it just does not seem to be interesting as many students as would be liked. All teachers are encouraged to use positive three to one interactions, redirection, and explicit expectations. The students can earn positive merits that can be traded in for ice cream, chips, or a slice of pizza. The weekly reward for those that have received no detentions, 6 demerits, is to wear jeans on Friday. Monthly students are invited to participate in the Final Friday dance party if they have received no detentions are

Running head: Mentor Program

have attended their detentions. Despite these positive behavior support interventions, there are still a large number of students not attending class due to various reasons. It has been said that one caring adult can change a students succes s. Hattie discusses how teacher-student relationships correlate highly to student achievement (2004). An inquiry question as developed to address our compelling needs: I wonder how a mentor program will help improve behavior and grades as measured by pre and post-student, teacher surveys, and anecdotal observation. A Participatory Action Research (PAR) team was created to address the inquiry question. The PAR members included Nat P, the principal; Lindsey M, 6 th grade level lead; Tammy L, 7th grade level lead, and Jodi O, resource teacher. Together we discussed the needs of the project during the monthly grade level meetings. Initially the inquiry question involved tracking grades, tardies, demerits, and referrals since the emphasis was to reduce the behavior problems and increase the grades with more time in class. After a couple of months, it just became difficult to track. Only the assistant principals were able to pull this information from Powerteacher, and the students known as frequent fliers changed often. Only a small handful of students were showing up as frequent fliers with high numbers of behavior problems and those students had already been assigned wrap around teams. The PAR team wanted to address students who may be under the radar with the targeting system but still have enough time out of the classroom to potential decrease student achievement. Based on the input of the staff, the PAR team decided to let the teachers decide who they wanted to mentor based on anecdotal needs. Some teachers had already informally started mentoring students in the fall and wanted to stay with those students. Teachers were encouraged to choose less than a handful of

Running head: Mentor Program

students to whom they could give at least 15 extra minutes per week. Since the teachers were already overburdened with two mandatory office hours after school, lunch time grade level meetings, and department/committee meetings occurring on none early release days, teachers were especially encouraged to mentor students that were already on their Advisory rosters. Advisory met four days a week for 45 minutes. During advisory, all students track their grades bi-monthly on personal line graphs. The advisors meet with all their students discussing grade progress. The students also wrote daily in journals and chose whether they wanted their advisors to read the journals. This close contact allowed teachers to identify high needs students that would benefit from the extra attention of a mentor program. The mentor program was voluntary for both teachers and students. Teachers were requested to meet with their mentors at least 15 minutes a week to discuss the correlation between behavior that allowed them to stay in the classroom and increase in grades. During the sharing of best practices, mentors mentioned how they were attending after school events and weekend activities showing support of their mentees. During lunch time grade level meetings, mentors shared who they were working with and mentioned if their mentees has special requests of all their teachers. The grade levels used this time as an informal pre-student study team with the idea that none of the mentees would make it to the full student study team process. Teachers were asked to track the names of their mentees and their grades per quarter. Mixed-methodology was used to track the progress of the mentor program. The PAR team looked at the results of a staff survey and student surveys. Some of the key findings of the teacher survey included that 100% of the staff surveyed wanted to mentor students the

Running head: Mentor Program

following year. A surprising 35% mentored students not on their rosters. 100% of mentors spent time dealing with personal issues of the mentees which was not an emphasis but makes sense in the building of teacher-student relationships. The students take two district surveys per year, so the PAR team decided to use the results of 3 questions in particular from these surveys. The questions pertained to the teacherstudent relationships the PAR team was aiming to increase. The survey was taken by the entire student body in the fall and in the spring. Because of the high transiency rate, almost one out of three students taking the post survey had not taken the fall survey. The results showed little change between the pre and post with the PAR team feeling that perhaps the students were exhausted from the CST tests taken the week before and may not have taken the 30 question district Scantron survey as seriously as they should. Anecdotally, the mentors felt that the mentees appreciated the time that teachers/staff were spending ensuring that they felt welcome at school and the desire to improve student performance. I feel that I have always been good at management and figuring out ways for projects to be more efficient. I entered the Educational Leadership Academy in hopes of strengthening leadership to add to my management skills. Together with the PAR team, I was able to create a shared vision of the importance of student-teacher relationships. This vision became so strong that all staff surveyed wants to be a part of it next year. As a leader, I have to remember to always ask myself if what we are doing is in the best interest of students. Also as a leader, I was able to inspire others to participate despite their already busy schedules. Some of the challenges that we faced are that when the monthly Grade Level Lead meetings were cancelled or a particular lead did not attend, it was hard to reschedule.

Running head: Mentor Program

Sometimes they simply were not caught up until the following month. This happened so often that the 8th grade team was pretty much on their own with the mentor program. Some of the successes of the program are that most staff participated with all wanting to participate next year. Despite hectic schedules, mentors were able to meet with their mentees before/after school, during advisory, and at lunch. Overall 82% of students on campus feel that someone cares about them. Next steps include utilizing the newly added second release day per week. Monthly events will be created for mentors and mentees on early release Fridays. A bi-monthly email will be sent with reminders and best practices for mentors. The PAR team decided not to focus on tardies and attendance. The frequent fliers for behavior problems will be tackled within the first month of school with a pre-SST meeting, possibly a meeting with the parents, and be chosen by a mentor. The mentor will monitor the students progress and report to the grade level team on early release Fridays. The goal will be to graduate out students quarterly of the mentor program with adequate progress to allow for new students to enter as they enroll in school.