KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For the past five years, I have been a mentor in the Kansas City, Missouri, Public School District. It has been an incredibly rewarding process for my mentee and for me.
This is my fourth year with the same student at Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts. In that time, I’ve seen my mentee go from a freshman to a confident senior.
Right now, more than 340 KCPS students are on a waiting list to be paired with an adult mentor. I spoke at a mentoring kickoff event on Oct. 3 to encourage people to sign up as a mentor.
At the event, I told the crowd how nervous I was to become a mentor - what would I have in common with a high school freshman? It didn't take long to click with my mentee. We share a lot of interests in sports, family, and being career-oriented. Now I can't imagine life without my weekly mentoring session.
So many of the district’s students are looking for a role model, someone to listen to them, and to have a caring adult show up with consistency in their lives.
Mentoring requires a weekly meeting with the students at their school from October through May. The 30-minute meetings normally take place during the student’s lunch period.
When I meet with my mentee, we talk about classes, but the majority of our conversations focus on the social elements of school. We often talk about music, sports, careers, and life in general.
Being a mentor is not being a tutor. It’s about forming a relationship to encourage students to reach for the stars at school and beyond.
Students on the waitlist are in all grade levels. Mentors choose if they want to work with a student in elementary, middle or high school.
KSHB 41 News Reporter Megan Abundis is also a mentor with KCPS.
If you are interested in becoming a mentor, call the school district at 816-418-7676 or visit the program’s website.
KSHB 41 reporter Charlie Keegan covers politics in Kansas, Missouri and at the local level. Share your story idea with Charlie.
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