Randi Slife

Lincoln would like to give a special shout out to one of our awesome mentees named Randi Slife. She is doing a tremendous job in the classroom and in YESS. Randi's attendance was horrible which of course reflected her grades. She was pulling F's in every class. Randi is still struggling in math, but is passing every other class and  is now sitting on a 3.1 GPA and a  85% in attendance. 

Randi is one student out of many who have received a bus pass from Mr. Medina. Mr. Medina has seen a great jump in his attendance report and will start rewarding our kids every month by buying them their monthly bus pass.

The Students want to thank Mr. Medina for being the patient, kind hearted man he is! They hope they can make him proud now that finals are 6 days away!

Good Luck Lancers!!!!!

We are two weeks away from finals here and Lincoln and the seniors are definitely feeling the heat. For our mentees, well, lets just say they're counting down for Christmas break!
Last week as usual we did homework on Tuesday. We ended our session with a 10 minute talk about Finals, and asking our students to start identifying who their support systems are. We told them for the next 2 crucial weeks leading up to finals for them to start leaning on their support systems and asking for as much help as possible.
Mr. Medinas 10 minute talk on Tuesday  led up to Thursdays Activity, Support Systems. We had a group discussion on what exactly support systems mean and who can fit in that category. The mentees response right off the bat were "their friends." The friends who they're getting in trouble and ditching classes with. We explained that they are the "bad friends." Someone who supports them is someone who pushes them to do good. Once we explained that a lot of there answers starting changing into answers like Teachers, Mr. Medina, and family members. Once we were done with our group discussion we had them fill out a paper that reflected what we talked about in our group discussion.

 

 This year was another successful year for the Turkey Basket Drive! Thanks to Lincoln High School, JROTC program and Mr. Medina and his family, for the help of collecting can foods and buying turkeys to feed 20 Lincoln families in need this year. A special thank you to the Lincoln Softball Program who took time off their vacation to come and stuff baskets and deliver to our Lincoln Families. Seeing the families happiness as we dropped off the baskets remind us on why have done this for so many years.
A special Thank you to Mr. Medina for taking time to build the relationships he has with his students. He Never stops caring once he clocks out. he has always been a helping hand inside and outside of school to the students and their families. Mr. Medina has been feeding families in need for the holidays for 10 plus years. Him and his family were once at the receiving end and never will he nor his family forget the joy they felt when someone put out a helping hand. We hope to keep the tradition alive for many more years to come!

 

It was great seeing Students in their costume last week as they filled the cafeteria to begin another week of YESS. As many know, Tuesdays are "homework days." The students are obligated to bring homework down and get work done that they are missing, or need help on. Some kids were looking at the clock every 5 minutes so they could run out quickly and begin to meet up with friends. While some kids, well, weren't in a rush at all!

Thursday, our students work on our time capsule. We like to give the students our time capsule questionnaire sheet that asks questions such as "are they motivated for school", "what they are most excited about right now", "list goals they would like to accomplish by the end of the school year", and so on. We know our students haven't thought about these questions yet, because as we know they're still learning how to be a student again in the classrooms. What we want them to see is the change in themselves from the beginning of the school year til the end. We put these questions in an envelope and will give it back to them at the end of the school year so they could read and reflect on the kid they once were at the beginning of the school year.  

Hi my name is Janessa Galvan, and I've been in YESS for 2 years. This is my first year being a mentor. Right now, I'm mentoring a freshman named Dez-Marie. The first couple of days mentoring her was not easy, she would never want to focus . I told her multiple times to do her work , called her in for lunch and tried to helped her as much as I can. Now as we carry on more into the program, Dez has calmed down and is starting to gain focus. I don't have to bother her over and over to get her work done.      
Dez-Marie started off not wanting to be a student in school or after school, and now she is becoming one. I Cant wait to see how my mentoring with Dez continues throughout the school year. 

Mr. Medina and I had great success last week as we had an over flow of students swarm the cafeteria. Something Mr. Medina and I haven't seen in the past years. Being an after school program and working with tier 3 students, having over 50 kids in our second week has been kind of unheard of, but a great problem to have. this week we will be going over our expectations in the cafeteria, our goals we want to achieve for the end of the school year and start identifying where kids are academically in their classes. We hope to have another successful week!!!

Last week was the first week we opened doors back up for the 2017-2018 school year. We seen a lot of similar faces as last years mentees decided to come back this year to receive help by choice. we had 17 mentees out of 25, and 10 mentors. Our Numbers always seem to be low from the start but this week the number will increase now that fall sports are winding down. We like to have our Softball team come down and mentor to teach them the concept of being a leader and giving back to the students in our school/community.

Its the first week of October and Lincoln HS is ready to open doors for the 2017-2018 school year! As weeks have been passing by, we've had mentees from last year stop by everyday to ask when our program will be starting up. In previous years, it felt like we were pulling teeth to get the kiddos downstairs, so its a great feeling to know their taking leadership and wanting to better themselves this year.
  Once again, this year we have great support from our school with signing in new mentees as we welcome the MTSS district wide discipline act in our school for the first year. Which is allying great with our YESS program in the building. We hope to pull in more mentors which is a struggle every year here at Lincoln. Our seniors don't receive any incentive, they choose to do it from the kindness of their heart. Wish us Good luck!

Good Morning!
 Lincoln is Finally getting back to the swing of things now that we are getting closer to opening the doors back up for YESS. The Great Mr. Medina has already identified his 25 Mentees who have been struggling in the classrooms.  I have been recruiting mentors and have held 2 mentor meetings so far with our 12 dedicated mentors. We as a group, have been recruiting for other future Mentors for about week now. I set our deadline for the end of this week, which I will be holding another mentor meeting. I am proud to say our 12 mentors now, were mentees from last year. The beginning is always a struggle but Mr. Medina and I are always up for the challenge!

The end is here! Lincolns Last day of YESS is tomorrow, followed by  the End Year Event on Wednesday. We are proud of our students for finishing strong and making a difference within themselves as students. 

23 days left of school and the students are getting anxious to be outside instead of class. We are doing the best we can to keep them engaged in the classroom.
We are down to our last couple sessions and we are proud to say this has been our strongest year so far. 

Last Thursday, Lincoln did a group activity and discussion about entitlement.We broke up our big group of students into 4 small groups with one leader in each group. We than put 15 minutes on the clock and gave each group marshmallows and tooth picks, their job was to try and build the highest tower.
 The objective was to see which group would plan a good layout, before they start building up.
 After, we re-grouped and  our lead mentors led a group discussion about how students like to dream big, but don't want to put the time nor energy to plan and achieve what they want.  Our lead Mentor Leslie Marquez talked about how she dreamed to be the first kid in her family to graduate. she talked about how life didn't have a good foundation layed out for her, so, she had to layout her own foundation and work even harder through all the struggles to make sure she reach where she is now, GRADUATION TIME. We hope this made all the mentors think harder on what they want to achieve and start working for it now that they are young.

We are back from spring break and we are now getting ready for another week of testing.. 2nd semester is full of different tests the students have to take and a weird schedule to follow right behind it. Even though the kiddos don't enjoy being in a classroom for 2 hours, we try to preach to them the importance of making sure they're still showing up and getting the work done. Majority of our students are not passing math, what better way can you take to understand the work better and get more done than to go sit in a classroom for two hours. We hope our students take this time seriously and take advantage of this opportunity to get their missing assignments in.    

Spring Break has arrived! Mr. Medina and I will be hand delivering our Spring letters to all of our YESS students. The spring letter consists of grades, how many after school sessions we have left and the up coming events we have going on. for example, the big breakfast and the end of the year celebration at Mile High. We hope our students are well rested and ready to regroup April 4th so we can finish strong. 

PARC Testing has arrived, and Mr Medina and I have been in and out of the classrooms to help support our students and staff here in the building. Now that we are in testing, Lincoln has switched their normal bell schedule to a block schedule, Which now means, students are sitting in a classroom for 2 hours! As some kids adjusted well to the schedule, others are having a difficult time focusing that long inside a classroom without a break.  Mr. Medina has been doing his best to answer all the teachers requests and still go out and do home visits for Lincoln.
Since we do not have access to our kids Mr. Medina and i will be doing our own home visits to get the intake sheet done for the YOBD grant. We will also be sending out another letter to each Mentee in the program to push on grades and attendance for the rest of the year.   

Last week we had a group discussion about support systems. The part that made last week so awesome  was,  having such a large group of students after school who all have different personalities and beliefs. Yet  one thing they all had in common was the name Mr. Medina.
 Mr. Medina works with a lot of students, some love him and some dislike him, but they all have respect for him! What each student pointed out was how effective he is with his students. Some students expressed that they had no support system until they met Mr. Medina. Mr. Medina knows hes part of these students support system but what he found out is, to some students, hes the only support system they have! It made Mr. Medina think a lot harder throughout the weekend on how he could support them even more then what he has throughout the school year. And to some students, its been longer than just this school year. Lincoln and YESS Mentoring are extremely lucky to have a man who goes above and beyond for each one of the students in his community. I hope to keep learning from such a powerful man and hope in years to come I'm as effective as he is with his students.         

Alicia Vasquez:

Alicia is one of the few girls in her group of friends to still be here at Lincoln. Mr. Medina put her and a group of her friends on contract when they were all caught ditching class and walking down federal. As she started to listen to Mr. Medina and grow a closer bond with him, she started to see her friends sink. Alicia is still trying to work on the behavior part; but has gotten better with her grades. She is now passing majority of her classes and she is now starting to develop into a leader. Alicia has started to give out names to Mr. Medina of the kids who she knows that are struggling in classes. She is also walking some of her friends down to the program to be helped by some of the teachers. 

Last week was a short, but productive week. Grades went in the books on Friday for the end of the first 6 weeks of second semester, and we are anxious to pull grades sometime this week to see how they did. Unfortunately, on Thursday we had to close the doors due to the number of students missing from school to support "A Day without an Immigrant".  Lincolns crowded halls and over populated parking lots were as empty as I have ever seen them during school hours. Not having students in a classroom and getting that extra help after school was devastating, but will lead to a great conversation when we meet up with our students this week.    

Hello my name is Leslie Marquez and my mentees name is Jazmin.  My mentee and I have been working very well, we made an instant connection when we met. As we got to know each other we can now sit comfortably and talk about not only our school issues but issues that happen in our everyday life. There is trust between us. I am thankful that she trusts me as a friend as well.  There isn’t a day that we don’t have a laugh here and there. Even in the hallways we talk and check up on each other. I really enjoy being her mentor we always get hr work done and we are both helping each other for the better. I look forward to seeing how she brings up her grades and to see her improve in every way. I will be there every step of the way.

Hi, I'm Ruben, a Senior at Abraham Lincoln High school, activist, and motivational speaker. This year is the second year I been with YESS mentoring and I am proud of being a Lead Mentor this year. I'm  very passionate about decreasing the achievement gap through leading programs like YESS and various other organizations. Next Year, I hope to attend an out-of-state college and will study business and entrepreneurship while there. My hopes are to one day own my own business and contribute to organizations that assist low-income and other students at disadvantage.