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Success Mentor Orientation

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Orientation Objectives

Understand the role of a Success Mentor

Learn promising practices for creating a Mentor/Mentee relationship

Review internal systems to track mentoring

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Chronic Absenteeism

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What is Chronic Absenteeism?

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Chronic absenteeism—or missing at least 10 percent of school days in a school year for any reason, excused or unexcused—is a primary cause of low academic achievement and a powerful predictor of those students who may eventually drop out of school.

Absent 2 days per month

9 months of school

Chronic Absence

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In NYC, 90,000 K-12 students are absent every day due to many different reasons.

Barriers to Attendance

Barriers

Chronic and acute illness
Family responsibilities or home situation
Trauma
Poor transportation
Housing and food insecurity
Inequitable access to needed services
System involvement
Lack of predictable schedules for learning
Lack of access to technology

Aversion

Struggling academically and/or behaviorally
Unwelcoming school climate
Social and peer challenges
Anxiety
Biased disciplinary and suspension practices
Undiagnosed disability and/or disability accommodations
Parents had negative educational experiences

Disengagement

Lack of challenging, culturally responsive instruction
Bored
No meaningful relationships to adults in the school (especially given staff shortages)
Lack of enrichment opportunities
Lack of academic and behavioral support
Failure to earn credits (overage and under credited)
Drawn to low-wage job vs being in high school

Misconceptions

Absences are only a problem if they are unexcused
Missing 2 days per month doesn’t affect learning
Lose track and underestimate total absences
Sporadic absences aren’t a problem
Attendance only matters in the older grades
Suspensions don’t count as absence
In person learning is seen as optional

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Success Mentoring Decreases Chronic Absence

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Why Success Mentoring?

Connection

When students have positive relationships with peers and adults at school they attend school more regularly

Success Mentoring

Success Mentors have helped chronically absent students gain up to 9 days of school and students in temporary housing gain up to one month of school

Success Mentoring is an evidence-based strategy to significantly reduce chronic absence rates and help students succeed in school and beyond.

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Who are Success Mentors?

Success Mentors are caring adults (or peers) who mentor chronically absent students to identify the barriers preventing them from attending school each day.

Anyone can be a Success Mentor: teacher, principal, school safety agent.

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Success Mentors-The Day to Day

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What do They Do?

Morning meet and greet
Phone call home every time student is absent and share a positive message
Meet one-on-one and/or in small groups
Recognize and celebrate even small successes

How do They Do it?

Track students’ attendance and improvement and identify supports and interventions

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Role and Expectations of a Success Mentor

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Success Mentor Point Person(s): ADD POINT PERSON AND CONTACT INFORMATION

Expectations for role: ADD SCHOOL SPECIFIC EXPECTATIONS

Tracking Interactions: ADD SCHOOL SPECIFIC SYSTEM

Escalation Protocol: ADD SCHOOL ESCALATION PROTOCOL AND SITUATIONS THAT REQUIRE ESCALATION AND TIMELINE

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Success Mentoring Best Practices

Check-Ins are a useful structure to help a mentor:

Reconnect with a student after time apart
Learn what is on a student’s mind
Talk with a student about personal or school-based concerns and successes

Check-Ins are designed to take approximately 5 minutes, but can easily extend beyond 5 minutes by:

Asking additional reflection questions
Focusing on a student specific concern of successes
Further developing a conversation that arises naturally from the check-in structure

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Keeping your Mentee Motivated and On Track

Create and post a monthly calendar where your mentee can mark each day that they come to school

Set small goals with your mentees (e.g. last week you came to school three days, let’s see if this week you can do four)

Meet with older siblings who attend the same school to strategize about how to get their younger sibling to school

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Keeping your Mentee Motivated and On Track

Create special events before and after school breaks (Winter Festival, Talent show, academic showcases) to discourage extended vacations

Sit in on classroom activities and assist mentees with class work-Partner with teachers and guidance counselors

Celebrate small successes!

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Building a Positive Relationship with Families

Be a familiar face! Send a letter of introduction home with your mentees or send an email

Call, text, email, or write parents with any good news about their children

Make phone calls in families’ home language- Make every effort to match a mentee with a mentor who speaks their home language

Hold improved attendance award ceremonies for parents and students. Give awards to parents, too!

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Tips for Phone Calls Home

Develop data and procedures to ensure that every absent student gets a call that day

Set a positive tone, at the beginning of the call, by saying something positive about the child

Be available to listen if the parent wants to talk about challenges and be ready with some suggestions (see next slide for a best practice)

Be prepared to respond to the type of answers parents may give for the child’s absence, such as “he’s sick”

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Mentor Resource Document

This document is a resource for success mentors that includes:

Responses to common absences and resources for families
Include sentence starters and sample scripts

We will build this together and it will evolve throughout the year(s)

LINK TO DOCUMENT

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Resources

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