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!