Lansing schools turn to mentors to boost graduation rates

LANSING — Lansing School District officials hope a mentoring program introduced this fall helps increase student performance, and hopefully graduation rates, and students who took part say it's already taught them new things and helped them build confidence.

The district graduated fewer than 7 in 10 students in the 2021-22 school year, and officials acknowledged the struggles with student achievement go back decades. The district has had the lowest graduation rates out of all the schools in the Greater Lansing area, trails the state average and has not surpassed a 70% graduation rate in at least two decades.

Earlier this year, the district introduced graduation specialists, district employees who track students' progress and identify those who need more support in an attempt to improve achievement and graduation rates. Those students can include those who need support in their classwork, who miss school or are late for class often, or are pulled out of class for behavior problems.

Graduation specialist Dori Moore said she was overwhelmed with responses and enthusiasm from the Lansing community when she began organizing ways to bring in volunteers to help students with tutoring. A collaboration that grew out of that effort involves the United Mentoring Program, which tested a mentoring program this past spring at Sexton High School.

This fall, the Lansing-based volunteers returned to offer all-day support most days, with a once-a-week mentoring session for 12 students. District officials hope the program can be one solution in the effort to boost graduation rates above 85% by 2025.

Part of the challenge for staff and volunteers is building trust.

"Some of these kids don't have consistent adults in their lives," said Tracy Edmond, one of the founders of United Mentoring Program, based in Lansing. "They don't trust people, their homes are broken, dads are in prison, grandmas are raising a lot of them. They don't have the jeans that the other girl has, the shoes the other guy has. They're angry, and you've just got to care."

The United Mentoring Program volunteers, who are paid a stipend from a grant, help students with schoolwork, offer accountability and provide someone they can trust. They say those things all impact students' emotional and mental health, which then affects their performance in school.

The fall semester program has ended, but the United Mentoring program will return in February. The goal is to eventually match each of the students in the program with a mentor who can be someone they rely on throughout high school and into the future.

Addressing the 'root cause' of students' struggles

For the 2021-22 school year, 68% of Lansing students graduated, the worst rate in the area and far behind Holt Public Schools which was the second-worst at 78%. The state average for the school year was 81%.

Edmond and fellow mentor Karry Smith say they believe a student can't progress without addressing the "root cause" behind bad behavior or grades, and they want to help them work through what they're struggling with.

"They're more than just 'troublemakers,' more than just whatever names people want to call them. There's a story behind the kid," Smith said. "If you're coming from a single parent household ... mom's working two to three jobs, she's never home, you got baby siblings to take care of... That might look like at school, 'She's never at school, he's never at school.'

"Why aren't they at school?" he added. "And if you're not willing to dig a little bit, find out what's really going on, we're nowhere near a solution."

'A safe haven' for students

Edmond and Smith already were working with kids through their church, Walk in Truth Ministries. The two Sexton alums realized students at their former school could use additional help.

They formed United Mentoring Program to serve at-risk youth in the Lansing community and "empower them to develop into their full potential, prepare them for life as an adult, and transform them into a positive influence in our community."

In the spring of 2023, the United Mentoring Program went into Sexton for a trial period. Mentors quickly realized students could benefit from having them in the school full-time. They approached Lansing Superintendent Ben Shuldiner and Principal Daniel Boggan about expanding the program. District officials agreed and provided the program its own room, and Boggan identified 12 students to take part.

The full-time program started in the fall semester and ran for 12 weeks. Mentoring sessions were organized as weekly meetings, but the mentoring room was open for those who needed it.

"It's a safe haven for a lot of kids that are in our program," Smith said. "One of the blessings is that it's starting to be a safe haven for kids who aren't even in the program and are just stopping by."

Shuldiner said he is pleased with the progress being made.

"We're absolutely thrilled with the relationship that the Lansing School District has with its community partners," Shuldiner said.

Freshman Oreyeal Duncan-Smith took part in the mentoring program and enjoyed the experience. "I like going to the meetings. I never knew some of these things... I feel more comfortable with what I'll do after high school."

The mentors say they hope the program fills some gaps in student knowledge that students in previous generations were taught.

"I want our children to benefit from some of the same things we had growing up that are no longer here," Edmond said. "We had so many programs as kids and they're not here, the state has taken away this, the government has taken away that program, there's no funding. It's people like us that say, 'Hey it's time for us to give back.'"

High school students don't necessarily take home economics classes any more or learn how to write a resume and apply for jobs, Smith said. The mentoring program might be the first time some students are exposed to those concepts.

So far, mentors have reported that students taking part in the program are turning in homework more often and have improved their attendance.

While the mentors are focused on helping the students graduate, they also want to improve their confidence and the knowledge of how the world around them works, Edmond said.

"They're so mindful now," Edmond said. "Paying attention, because we talk about how to act in class. We hold them accountable to attendance. There's a presence here to help them make the right decisions."

United Mentoring staff try to look at the whole picture of a student's life. Some of the students' families might be struggling with not having enough to eat or needing clothing they can't afford. Through their partnerships with faith-based organizations, the mentors try to organize volunteers to help the families.

"We do, probably, what the Lansing school district can't do," Edmond said. "We don't just mentor the kid, we mentor the family... We're trying to figure out is it milk you need? Is it a pair of shoes?"

'I'm not going anywhere'

The mentors say they want to create genuine, lasting relationships with the kids.

"When they see you care what they care about, that's how you get them," Smith said. "Now that you've listened to them, the more they listen to you."

Some of the students come from difficult life situations that impact their ability to do well in school and affect their ability to trust adults.

Building that trust extends even to students accepting rewards for excellent work, like a $20 gift card. Edmond said the rewards are intended to represent how students could receive scholarships from colleges if they do well in school, but some initially questioned the offer.

"One girl came up and she said, 'Why you guys trying to bribe us? What do you want from us?'" he said. "And I said, 'You don't want the $20?' I said, 'Why do universities give out scholarships? You think they're trying to bribe you... or are they looking for people who do their work and do it well?'"

Junior Zeke Shakoor said the mentoring program has provided him a support system he never felt he had.

"I feel more comfortable (with the mentors), more than I do with the other teachers here," he said.

Shakoor said he knew the mentors were "genuine" and never felt like he was just another kid to them. He also said he learned things he didn't know.

"At first, I didn't know what a GPA was," he said. "I didn't know what it meant... they took the time to explain that to us."

Shakoor wants to be an electrician, and one of the mentors who works with students has pushed him to pursue that goal.

Smith said he's seen growing maturity among the students. He said he attended one of Shakoor's basketball games and the game didn't go well. Shakoor was upset and when Smith went to talk to him after the game, the student pushed past him without a word.

The next day in school, Shakoor saw Smith and apologized.

"He came to the classroom with his head down," Smith said. "He said, 'I'm sorry for yesterday. I didn't mean to... you know,' and I grabbed him quickly, shook his hand, gave him a big hug, and said, 'Man it's OK, I'm not going anywhere.'"

Moore said she relates with the students by being honest with who she is and where she's come from.

"A lot of it is sharing our stories," she said. "When they look at me, they look at other adults, they see the finished project. So, 'How would you know what I've been through?' and often I don't know what they've been through, but we can all connect on shared experiences."

Contact Sarah Atwood at satwood@lsj.com, or follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @sarahmatwood

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: How Lansing schools are using mentors to boost graduation rates