Pete Gonzales: 2009 Mentor of the Year
“When working with Michael, we finally got into the subject of grades. I was able to get permission from his mom to access his grades through the school’s on-line system. Michael was embarrassed and I was really worried when I saw he was failing four of his five classes. We talked about how he really wanted to go to high school the following year and how that wasn’t going to happen if he didn’t pass his classes. Over the next few months we looked as his grades and homework on-line each time we met and talked about ways he could be successful. Slowly, his grades began to move upward and by the end of the year, he passed with all C’s! We were both very excited and Michael is now a freshman at Federal Way High School!”
Pete Gonzales started mentoring through the Personal Academic Student Support (PASS) Mentoring Program at Communities In Schools of Federal Way at the beginning of 2007. He was matched with a 13-year old boy, and they met at school for an hour a week on a weekly basis.
“Conversations were forced at first, but in time little holes were punched through the walls and we’d have some good meetings,” Gonzales remembers, “Some weeks were easier than others, then the next week we’d be back to where we started.”
At the end of the school year, Gonzales’ mentee was suspended from school due to a behavioral incident. “I was crushed and felt as if nothing at all had been accomplished,” Gonzales said.
These kinds of stories happen often in the lives of school children. Middle and high school is often the most difficult time for students—and research shows that this is usually the time when students decide whether or not to drop out of school. The National Center for Education Statistics found that nearly 1 in 10 students drop out of school. When looking at Hispanic students specifically, that number rises to nearly one in four students.
Communities In Schools of Federal Way is dedicated to preventing students from dropping out of school by connecting them with needed community resources and support. The PASS Mentoring Program matches students with mentors who provide support, friendship and good role models to students in the Federal Way School District who are at risk of not graduating.
Research shows that having a mentor increases students’ attendance rates and grades, and decreases incidences of disruptive behavior, alcohol/drug use and likelihood of dropping out of school (Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America 1995 Impact Study). But the most important changes that take place are often the most difficult to see. By being a caring adult in a student’s life, a mentor can improve a student’s self-esteem and belief in their ability to succeed in life (Baylor Community Mentoring for Adolescent Development Pre and Post-test Assessment).
The next September, Gonzales returned to school to meet with his mentee. A couple weeks later, the school counselor asked Gonzales if he would meet with another young boy who had requested a mentor. Gonzales agreed and mentored both his first student and the new student.
“A couple weeks later I ran into the school counselor who asked me how we were doing.” Gonzales recalls, “I said slow, but fine, and asked how he came to the program. She paused, then smiled, and said he was recommended to me by my first mentee. In mentoring, the changes that eventually do manifest themselves are usually subtle, but ultimately very powerful and completely rewarding.”
