Hello!

Last week was a great week here at Lincoln H.S. We are a week and a half away from finals and our Mentors and Mentees are defiantly feeling the stress. Yet, among all the stress the mentors are feeling, they are still making time to make sure their mentees are prepared for their very first High school final. We have some mentors who are going to their mentees classes and talking to teachers, as other mentors are actually driving to the mentees home to pick them up so they are not late to school.  On Tuesday, we gave our mentors a little packet containing their mentees attendance and grades. We had them go over how their attendance can reflect their grade in the classes. We also made sure mentors were checking the percentages and missing assignments in each of their mentees failing classes and coming up with a few detailed goals on how they could bring them up. We want to make sure the classes they are failing is the work they are bringing down to YESS Mentoring.

At the end, we had a group discussion about the importance of getting to class on time and staying engaged throughout the whole class time. As well as talking about staying proactive and communicating with their teachers about missed assignments or assignments, they can redo to get a higher grade.

We are now a full month into YESS and things are going great so far. Our Mentors have been doing a great job with working individually with our YESS Mentees.

We have spent some time going over organization skills and decided to bring down folders for mentees. The mentors emptied their mentees backpack out so they can start organizing their papers into folders. We also went over the importance of staying organized for each class. On Thursday we did an ice breaker. It consist of information about themselves that the mentors might have in common with them along with their goals for school.

Mr. Medina went over one thing majority of the students have in common and that’s 80219, our zip code. We all come from the same neighborhood and we should always push one another to do better than where they started.

We’ve also been working on grades. We’re starting to see them put more progress into their classes. Their 5 or more F’s are now cutting in half. Finals are creeping up faster than we Intesa pated so we are pushing them to turn in their missing assignments.  

This week will be our third week of YESS, and so far things are going fantastic. Week by week our numbers are increasing with students who are eager to get the help. We have a great number of students who are returning from last year showing the new kids what we expect from them once they enter the cafeteria.

You have read Jazmin and Noelia’s story. Now, here is a short summary on how things are going for Randi Slife this year. A mentee from last year who has now transitioned to a mentor this year.

 

 

   Hi, my Name is Randi Slife. Last year I was a mentee and it helped me out a lot. This year I have decided to be a mentor. Today I have met my mentee Marlen. I am looking forward to working with her and giving her the support she needs. My experience so far is great! I am getting to learn about her as well as telling her about myself. I’m making sure she understands that I’m here for her not only for help in academics but in life as well. I want her to have an amazing experience like I did and I can’t wait to continue this journey with her.

 

I’m Noelia Guillen, I’m a JUNIOR and i am part of YESS, I was put in YESS because of my

attendance, grades, and maybe even attitude. I was a student who was about to be kicked out

of school, a student who wouldn't care about grades, going to class or being respectful. I was a

mess. Everyone tried to help but i never wanted help i always thought it wasn't worth it. When i

saw i really needed help it felt like everyone had given up on me. That's when Medina called me

down, on my way down I already knew who he was, I already had an idea of him and what he

was going to do. There was always bad comments about him around school, students saying

“Medina got Angel kicked out” “That dude never helps” I heard all kind of bad comments never

good ones. Once i got in his office i automatically hated him, he told me to sit down and started

to show me my middle school record, my grades, my attendance, and my behavior referrals

EVERYTHING. I was bothered because i knew who i was and what kind of student i was i knew

i was the best, so i got mad and started to give attitude, that's when he said ‘’go to class’’ and

called home, while i was going to class my mom called, she wasn't happy, she started to

scream at me saying “ when are you going to change, when is the day i wont get a call from

school telling me you're not in class or that you're failing all classes that you might not graduate

on time?” Hearing that from my mom hurt me hearing those words felt like she had given up on

me too. Later that day i got home and got in a argument with my mom, that's when she told me

we have a meeting at school next week. The week passed and it was the day of the meeting i

remember everyone was there, The principal, my advisement teacher, the athletic director, my

counselor and of course Medina. They all started to tell my mom how i was doing in school, they

showed her ALL kinds of papers i felt like they were all just trying to put my mom against me,

Medina told my mom there was a program here in school that could help, but it was going to be

based on me if i fixed my things or not they said if i didnt i was out this school, they told my mom

to sign a paper where she agrees to the contract. I didn't want to go or her to sign that paper,

but she did. The next week YESS started, i got put with Jaz, at first i didn't really like her i

thought she wasn't going to be able to help me. The weeks passed and became months my

grades were getting better, my attendance, and my attitude. I even started to try to help others

my friendship with Jaz was the best and still is, she wasn't just my mentor she was a close

friend. Jaz wouldn't just talk to me after school during YESS when she would see me in the hall

she would always ask “how are you doing?” “Did you already turn in what we did.” “Make sure to

bring down work.” She was always and still is supportive! Around February i started to do bad

again, my grades went down Medina called me down, i already knew why. I knew everything

was starting to be bad. He asked what was going on. I didn't know i just felt like i needed a

break, that day Jaz was upset. I sat down and she stared at me and all she said was, “Why?” i

didn't know what to do or say to her. I had done her dirty. She had done so much for me, i was

mad and sad with myself. I walked out and punched the wall, Jaz didn't stop me. She followed

me and just watched me then she said, “Are you done ?” i said i didn't know and that i needed a

break. I felt like it was to much i wanted to give up. She sat down on the floor with me and

started to bring up my future, she asked about my goals, sports, everything. I told her i wanted

to graduate to become a psychologist. I told her i wanted to be o the soccer team again and be

able to be on varsity again and actually be able to play. She looked at me and said, “I believe in

you and a lot of people do. Medina does and that's why he put you down here. I know you can

be capable of everything you want to do.” i cried and looked at her and promised to change to

do better and not give up. Now i'm a JUNIOR AND I'M BACK ON TRACK. My friendship with

Jaz is still one of the best, i am close to Medina and i'm a better person thanks to Medina, Jaz

and specially YESS. This is my story, my story to tell.

Good Morning YESS Staff!

This will be Lincoln’s first blog this school year! We have been working hard through the month of September with finalizing the Mentee list and recruiting this year’s Mentors! Mr. Medina has started the process of doing home visits, to give assurance to families, that they can put trust in him to watch over their son/daughter in school.  I have been lucky to go on home visits with him. The knowledge he has is unexplainable. Each household we enter is always different, but the magic and energy he brings when we step in is inspiring. Mr. Medina has already started blue slips as well, so the students are learning how to be accountable when they step in the building.

We have had Mentor Meetings for the past 3 weeks, with the short amount of mentees we have. We are fortunate that our mentors are stepping up and recruiting more for our program. We have also linked up with the future center as well with NHS to draw more kids into the program. We are amazed to have last year’s Mentees asking us if they can return to the program this year. They were a tough group but it is great we were able to connect with them.

Mr. Medina and I have decided that from here on out all blogs will be done by students. We believe it is their program so they should tell you wants going on through their eyes.

We have attached a story written by a past Mentee who has now transitioned into a Mentor. This story was sent to us by a teacher in the building who was inspired by the impact off YESS Mentoring inside of the Lincoln building.

Have a Great weekend!

 

As I was walking down the stairs, I saw Mr. Medina’s exasperated face.  I instantly knew something was wrong. “Hey Jaz get over here!”  His tone didn’t seem too good. “Noelia is failing again and I need you to pick her back up.” As soon as Mr. Medina told me she was failing her classes again, I was furious.  Thoughts were running through my head.  I was wondering where I failed as a mentor.  My job was to help her with grades, pass all her classes, but she was nowhere near that.  I spent all my Tuesdays and Thursdays after school at 2:30 in the Yess Mentoring Program to tutor kids who need help with work.

When Noelia was walking down the stairs, I had already felt her vibe and it wasn’t too good.  It seemed that she already knew what was going on and her attitude made everything much worse.  She threw her backpack on the table and sat down.  I placed my backpack down on the table and looked her right in the eyes and asked, “why?” She shrugged her shoulders and didn’t say anything.  I had this shameless feeling that I couldn’t explain.  I had failed this girl as a leader, a mentor, and as a friend.

When I was a freshman and sophomore, I was exactly like Noelia.  People viewed me as a Christian girl who ditched all her classes.  A girl that would act differently just to fit in.  People viewed Noelia as a“bad student.” She was a girl who didn’t want to go to class, who yelled at teachers, who had the worst attitude, and was the girl who nobody could control.  I had committed and dedicated myself to change this girl.

Now, Noelia is on-track to graduate.  She is now considered a junior who goes to all of her classes.  Ever since sophomore year, she has not been kicked out of any classes and loves to read.  Noelia has decided that she wants to go to college to study Psychology.  In the past three years that I have known Noelia I could really say I made a big impact on her life.  When I met her, she wanted nothing to do with me.  She didn’t care about her grades and refused to do her work.  I have learned to be patient not just with her but with myself.  I have learned that everyone progresses at his or her own time and that is okay.  I have also learned to have a connection with her.  She is not only my mentee, but she’s also a person I can count on for anything.  She has learned to be dependable and she has also learned to be patient and give everything its time.  Now that I will soon graduate, I would like for Noelia to follow in my footsteps to become a leader and help others who struggled like her.  The Yess Mentoring Program has taught me the values of leadership, commitment and friendship, not only with the mentees, but with the mentors and teachers.  Throughout my high school experience, I can say that it was not easy.  I would like to go to college and go into the medical field to become an OBGYN or a registered nurse.  I love to help people and be part of their journey.  Now that I am a senior and have seen Noelia experience the same struggles as I,  I can say until this day, she is not afraid to be different and ask for help.  I have a story to tell and I know Noelia does too.

March 14th-16th. Phew, did this week fly by quick! Almost felt like I blinked twice and it was already Friday!  While we flew by this week unseemingly quick, we continued to work on our usual progress; the mentors and mentees continued with their regularly scheduled programming. On Tuesday, we tutored. Now that conferences are over, the students are re-energized and ready to work on their assignments. Keep in mind, we kept our focus on meeting our mentees needs. Therefore, we went over class and homework priorities. With that focus, we were able to get a lot done in both our after school sessions on Tuesday and Thursday, in addition to addressing many students’ stress and worrisome over grade falls. But not to worry! We continually asked questions to see where they would fall and see where we could push them to deliver some of their worries and slide falls. But, last not least lancers still arise strong!

Happy March!

This week up as we approach early March, we continued to work intensively on grade checks and introduce a new game activity in our program.

Tuesday, we went over homework and class reports. With that, my mentees and I started to examine very closely with their grades with each class and their grade percentages. By examining each of their grade percentages and potentially what assignments are downing their grade or missing in the grade book, I sat with both of my mentees, followed along with a new mentee into my group, Diana Solto, we did a verbal step by step plan to improve those grades even higher than their B or A streak. Additonally, I followed up giving them advice about what habits they want and don’t want to keep for the next following year in order to keep themselves productive and top of their work. Later during their conversation, they asked me how I was able to maintain and be persistent with my schedule. With that, I told them “For me, it is honestly learning how to manage and being consistent with your work. Like myself, I learned to set my values and worked my schedule around what was important and if they matched up to my values.” I added on, “Sometimes I found myself overwhelmed with the commitments I had, but I told myself that it would all be worth it in the end if what I was doing matched matched my values as a person.”

Shifting to Thursday, our team came up with a new lesson plan called “Life with the Wright Family”. The objective of the game is listening story where one person will read out a story. Within this story, you will hear a repetition of “left” and “right”. Everytime you hear, a certain direction, you will pass the object (in this case, we used pins ) in that direction. Regardless if many students messed up or not, the lesson of the plan is similarly in life, we have many obstacles and distractions that will pull us “left” and “right”, however we should remember to focus on one thing in life, in this case, it was to listen very closely not only for directions but the plot of the story. In the end, Mr. Medina was able to ask them question to reflect on their communication, teamwork and listening skills both individually and as a whole group. While, many of the members enjoyed the activity. Many of whom took this time to reflect on very essential things like listening and communication skills in life. In the end, we wrapped our last 15 minutes on beautiful homework!

Coming to a closure of February, we decided to continue the progress with our mentees not only to get them more merely concentrated on their classes and homework, but to also initutate the idea to push them even harder around this time of the year in second semester. Because not only do we see the downward trend in student engagement and motivation in students all across the world around this time, but students often happen to drop their attendance in this time as well in statistical manners. By addressing this type of concern, we also try to make sure to have individual conferences with our mentees going over class grades and overall attendance rates and keep them on track in their progress after the 6 week mark of report cards. With this, we were able to have them focus on homework, meanwhile pulling half of our mentees out one by one to go over these report cards. While, the other half were left in Thursday to go over grades. But with this all, I especially want to give my biggest recognition and gratitude to all our mentees this year. With that being said, as well as the staff. Our YESS team at Lincoln are proud that we have a group of unbelievably strong and amazing mentees who come in everyday ready to conversate and ready to push themselves in academics with our vital support.

By Thursday after school, we started to actually have some conversation with our mentees about very serious events happening around the world. Although, this is a scary topic to address, it is a very vital topic to discuss and ensure that there is vastness around the building and adults to talk to. For myself, I was able to offer my support and assertiveness of being there and also being supportive in the lives of my own mentee and others. In the end, we realize that academics is very important to keep on with to ensure a ideal future for yourself, however it is as much as important to also make sure that we love in a safe environment by initiating and constantly reminding them that we are one and always one to keep them safe and free of violence from all events happening. To that, we are making moves to express that we are one and that we always look after each and every one of them.

In the very starting week of February, our program decided to begin like no other: homework Tuesdays and activities Thursdays. Starting Tuesday after school, we decided to keep the focus remained on pushing the mentees to ask questions about homework, and having discussions about keeping their grades strong as they follow into their second semester. Not only has the second semester transitioned with the same students and some newer students, but many students seem to have a closer connection with their mentors both in academics and personal level. Along with that, I started to notice that because these mentees are focused on strengthening their academics but they seem to always go past the “40 minute” mark after school. Which is, well far an aco placement for us to know they are engaged into the program itself and developing stronger relationships with their mentors.

But as we shift towards Thursday, we decided to make it focused towards more collaborative work. The activity we presumably chose was the tall tower/pyramid challenge using only marshmallow and toothpicks. The opponent of this game is to collaboratively work together to build a tall, yet strong tower or pyramid using only toothpicks and marshmallows. Towards the end of this competition, many of our mentees were able to reflect as a team and think about what some of the strengths and weak efforts as a team. The overall connection we were able to reflect towards the end made students realize that the base of your tower or pyramid is what mattered most. Such as, a student who builds a strong connection/ support system, he or she will able to use these resources to not only obtain much bigger potential than they can imagine with the support of these people, but their goals and decisions in life. Therefore, creating a balance of great connections and a strong focus will not only refers to a strong pyramid but truly keep building as they continue to focus on holding the balance and hold strong connections like the marshmallows do in order to hold the toothpicks together.

Things at Lincoln have been Going great as we finished another week of YESS. Tuesday of course was our normal Homework day. We are proud of many students as they are becoming more cautious of their grades. Its been a great feeling for Mr. Medina and I to start seeing the change in majority of the students as they start to see the importance of school, grades and their education. Majority of the parents work one or two jobs and rely on the student to make sure they are getting done what they are needing to graduate. Seeing our students start to develop the right skills to succeed in school is a heart warming feeling for us. Every student now has a buy in, into what school and YESS has to offer.
Mr. Medina has added a few new students This semester. We had 3 teachers and the school posologist come in this week to help support the new students who are needing more of the emotional support. Coming into a program mid year can be a bit scary especially if they already have emotional problems.
  Thursday was activity day. Lead Mentors have been coming in and working with me all week to present our Activity "Masks."  In this activity we hand out face masks to each student and have them start identifying on half of the mask who they were before they were  placed in YESS and who they are now on the other half. The lead Mentors worked the room talking to some students about how standoffish they were in October to where they are now. The mentees talked about how they would skip classes and had no care in the world about what school had to offer. To now, Checking their grades every week and checking in with Mr. Medina every morning. Its awesome to see such growth in the students!
To end the week, Mr. Medina had a t-shirt design contest with the mentees. The Mentee who had the best t-shirt Design won a $25 gift card. we had many students in the drawing but only one came out a winner, Miss Alyssa Morales came out with the best drawling! The Funny part about Alyssa being apart of the contest is, she argued with Mr. Medina constantly about not wanting to be in the problem and not wanting support from him! Mr. Medina would knock on her door every time she would miss YESS. Now Alyssa sits on a 2.9 GPA and tells other teachers "Mr. Medina caring about me and putting me into YESS is what made me turn around as student and made me start caring about school."
We are proud of her!

 

Last week was more of a productive week now that our students are finally getting more work from their teachers for second semester. We had a great Homework session on Tuesday. The Mentees are now starting to stay up on their grades now from the beginning so they don't have to play catch up last minute.
On Thursday we did our favorite activity called The Maze Walk.
That's when our lead Mentors try to make a difficult maze with chairs and tables. The purpose is for the mentee (who is blind fold) to listen and trust their mentee to guide them through the maze while everyone else in the room screams and tries to misguide them .(the bad friends)
What we want the mentees to see is how there are a lot of bad friends trying to mislead them in the wrong direction but if they put trust into their Mentor, or the people who are trying to help they could be led in the right direction if they listen. We hope our mentees took in this lesson next time a "friend" asks them to ditch a day of school or do something the are not suppose to.