Strive Update for all Rotary and Community Mentoring Volunteers
Happy Christmas Week everyone!
Since fall 2018, many leaders in the high school (including principal Scott Gengler), Wayzata Rotary Club (championed by Norrie Thomas), Interfaith Outreach (led by Ladonna Hoy and Carol Bergenstal) and I have worked hard to plan a sustainable, high quality Rotary STRIVE program. Here are pieces in place:
* WHS has brought in volunteer Americorps Promise Fellow Chuck Krausert to tutor its Alternative Learning Center (ALC) students and is developing strong relationships with many students and will share his experience.
* Mentor Minnesota has invited IOCP to apply for one of its consultants to advise Rotary and IOCP in the planning of mentor training (topics like implicit bias, suburban poverty, trauma resilience, and cultural connection) using best practices specific to STRIVE goals; we expect consulting sessions to begin in a few weeks.
* Jodi Olson, the new WHS Continuing Education Coordinator of Community Engagement and Partnerships, has been given permission to coordinate Strive with us on the school side.
* Mary Williams, WHS Associate Principal and ALC Director charged with closing the achievement gap, will attend the MentorMN consulting sessions to learn best practices for identifying students to invite into mentoring with the highest potential to benefit from it.
These positive developments are among the reasons WHS, Rotary and IOCP leaders have decided to use the spring to build a stronger foundation based on MentorMN research and expertise to start STRIVE in the fall. We will continue working so that in August we are ready to roll out a robust, sustainable, accountable, research-based and intentionally mutually beneficial program.
Until then I’ll send updates on our progress. Thank you, thank you for caring so deeply about these students!
Brad Sleeper