By TARA HETTINGER
Jerome Costner is hoping to achieve what he admits is probably an unrealistic goal — finding nearly 12,000 adult volunteers to mentor each student in the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp.
But to start, he is going for 120 volunteers to help 20 kids at each of the six schools chosen to be a part of a pilot Mentor Mii Program — or mentors get involved and inspire. So far, he has about 30.
“There’s things you can alter and things you can’t alter,” said Costner, mentoring program coordinator. “We can’t alter the lives the kids have at home ... We can encourage the kids to not be absent from school and try to drive up those attendance rates. We can support them and drive up those graduation rates.”
Costner said he hopes the program also will cause discipline referrals to go down.
He said all that can be accomplished with a caring adult spending one hour with a child a week, which will happen during school hours.
“We do not want to take away from [classroom] instruction time. Mentoring will take place during the school day,” Costner said, adding that it would be during lunch or enrichment class periods.
But that time can make a big difference, Costner said.
“So many positive things can happen. The more we encourage our young people, the better they will be in the classroom and that will carry on outside the classroom,” Costner said, adding that it would make them more productive residents as they grow older.
They aren’t the only ones who may benefit from this program.
“There’s a lot kids can learn from adults, and adults can learn vice versa from the kids,” Costner said.
Those interested will have to go to one training session. The first session is from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday at the New Albany-Floyd County Education Support Center, off Grant Line Road. Breakfast and lunch will be served.
Costner said people can RSVP or just show up for the training, where they will learn how to help teach skills to children, such as time management.
Volunteers will then fill out an application so that they can be better matched with a student needing a mentor. All volunteers will have to pass a background check before heading into the schools.
This first year will involve students at the following schools: Children’s Academy of New Albany, S. Ellen Jones Elementary, Slate Run Elementary, Hazelwood Middle, Scribner Middle and New Albany High School.
As more people volunteer and get involved, Costner hopes to expand the program to include more students and schools. He hopes to eventually have the program at every school within the corporation.
