ASHLAND — Ryane Briggs, an Ashland High School history teacher, waited for quiet to fall over Edison Elementary School’s gymnasium.
“We’ve got a fun activity planned today,” Briggs told the students.
Third graders and high schoolers filled the gym. Each third grade student had a high school mentor — part of a mentorship program that extends across the Ashland City Schools district.
Briggs directed the students and their mentors to grab balloons of the same color.
They were to blow them up and tie a string around the balloons and their ankles.
Then, chaos ensued as the mentor-mentee pairs ran around the gym, trying to pop other pairs’ balloons.
Shrieking filled the gym as some students targeted each other. Others tried to avoid the middle of the gym floor, sticking to the outskirts to protect their balloons from being popped. Still others conducted sneak attacks.
The game lasted about a half hour before Briggs ended it. She instructed the high school mentors to help their younger buddies clean up and escort them to the playground before catching a bus back to Ashland High School.
Briggs, along with fellow Ashland High School teacher Kim Rogers, run the mentorship program at the high school. High school mentors go into every other school in the district: both Edison and Reagan Elementary schools, Taft Intermediate School and Ashland Middle School.
The goal of the program is to build connections and relationships, Briggs and Rogers said.
“When you’re a relational person, and you’re watching these relationships form, it’s absolutely beautiful,” Briggs said. “But I think, not only do I like watching the mentor-mentee relationship grow … but I really, really love watching the mentors become adults.”
How does the program work?
Briggs said she’s been involved with the mentorship program at Ashland High School since it first started about eight years ago.
Juniors and seniors could apply to join as mentors. If selected, they’d travel to Ashland Middle School and Taft Intermediate School to develop relationships and work with younger students. Both are within walking distance of the high school, and the program didn’t have transportation in its earliest iteration.
But over the years, the program has expanded. It now reaches every school in the district. Fifty high schoolers currently take part in the program.
Mentors take a class at the high school, either with Rogers or Briggs. Students who travel to Taft go twice a week, as do Ashland Middle School mentors. Edison mentors go to the school once a week, and all Reagan mentors go to the school twice a month.
Mentoring typically takes place during lunch or recess at each school.
Briggs and Rogers said they work closely with liaisons and teachers at the schools to find out which students need the extra support a mentor can offer. Often, mentees are students who might be shy, have challenges at home, or struggle with behavior or attendance.
Sometimes students engage in a fun activity, like the one at Edison. At Reagan, the high schoolers help with character-building concepts.
At the middle school, students focus on getting to know each other through an activity once a week and have a “fun day” during the second session. They can play games and talk to their mentors freely that day.
No matter the activity, Briggs and Rogers say mentors act as a consistent figure in their mentees’ lives.
Creating connections and making meaning
Briggs and Rogers say the program has a positive impact for high schoolers and younger students alike. For younger students, the program provides an incentive to do their best. Anecdotally, it’s helped with improving younger participants’ attendance, behavior and grades.
I just think it means so much to them that they mean something to someone.
Michael Franzi, Ashland High Senior
The high schoolers, on the other hand, grow in their responsibility. They want to be there for the younger students, Briggs said.
James Daubenspeck, a senior at Ashland High School who’s been part of the program for two years, said the program has taught him patience and compassion. He has worked in both Taft Intermediate School and Edison Elementary.
Those skills are ones he said he hopes to apply later in life — both in his career and with his own children.
Several other mentors agreed with Daubenspeck about the program teaching them patience. Some shared they’ve learned how to break up fights and deal with conflict through the program, while others have helped their students navigate dramatic situations.
Michael Franzi, another mentor and senior, credited the patience he’s developed through mentorship with making him a better person.
“I know that a lot of the kids in this program have hardships at home, and for us to be there for ’em at least twice a week, it just really helps out a lot,” Franzi said. “I just think it means so much to them that they mean something to someone.”
Zoe Zimmerman knows the impact the program can have firsthand. When she moved to Ashland, her sister was a mentee. Zimmerman watched as the program helped her little sister find a place in Ashland, and knew she wanted to give back in that same way.
So, Zimmerman signed up to be a mentor as soon as she could her junior year.
A senior now, Zimmerman’s in her second year of mentoring. For her, the program acts as a motivator to be a good role model and leader. In her view, that means being there for others — especially her mentees.
“(My mentee) brings so much joy to my Mondays, which are normally really sad days, but any time that I see him, I just get so excited,” Zimmerman said. “I think it’s just nice to know that somebody looks up to me that much.”
