Mentoring/Student Assistance Initiatives & School & Instructional Enhancement Grants
Funds are appropriated by the legislature to the Florida Department of Education each year for Mentoring/Student Assistance Initiative grants and School and Instructional Enhancement grants. The purpose is to improve student performance for low-performing, at-risk students by providing additional learning opportunities; increasing personal responsibility and community involvement; discouraging drug and alcohol and weapon use, and other delinquency involvement; reducing dropout rates; and improving academic achievement.
Best Buddies Florida Program
Best Buddies International provides mentoring activities to intellectually challenged students to help them become integrated with other students and promote social inclusion in the community. Middle schools and high schools throughout the state are targeted. Each chapter pairs students with and without intellectual challenges in one-to-one friendships. Through their Best Buddies friendships, these students learn social skills, develop self-confidence, and in some cases learn leadership skills within the club.
Big Brothers Big Sisters Program
The Big Brothers Big Sisters program provides mentoring activities for at-risk and low-performing students, addresses unmet needs at low performing schools, and provides training and support to mentors. They work within low-performing schools to provide academic assistance to students who are identified as at-risk in one of the Florida Standards learning areas. Students are assigned to a mentor and a case manager who tracks the students’ success. Activities include one-on-one mentoring, homework support, extended classroom learning, and addressing individual skill gaps.
Boys & Girls Clubs Florida Alliance
Boys & Girls Clubs provide tutoring and mentoring services for at-risk and low-performing students after school. Activities include Power Hour (homework help and tutoring which raises students’ academic proficiency), Power Learn (reinforces and enhances skills and knowledge learned at school), Goals for Graduation (teaches students the concept of academic goal setting), other academic activities, family engagement and collaboration with schools.
Girl Scouts of Florida "Get Real" Mentoring Program
The Girl Scouts of Florida’s “Get Real” Mentoring Program is designed to provide mentoring activities for at-risk middle school girls to improve their student performance. The participants are provided reading and writing opportunities, as well as interactive activities that teach life skills. This program connects these students with caring community members that serve as mentors. The goal of the “Get Real” curriculum is to increase the girls’ motivation and ability to make positive life choices that will impact school performance.
Orlando After-School All-Stars
Orlando After-School All-Stars (ASAS) Project ASAS-FL is a collaboratively designed, community-driven initiative providing targeted, structured, academic support, enrichment activities and workforce education for 975 socioeconomically disadvantaged students in grades 6-12. The programs and services are provided to the targeted students at schools in three ASAS chapters in Florida (Orlando, South Florida (FIU) and Tampa). All programs occur on the host campuses during the afterschool hours as well as during the summer. The general goals of Project ASAS-FL are: providing a safe environment, improving academics, and career awareness and readiness.
Take Stock in Children Program
Take Stock in Children provides mentors and college scholarships for low-income students between 6th and 9th grades in order to enhance their likelihood of college preparation and attendance. This program provides students with college and vocational-technical scholarships, volunteer mentors, student advocates, tutoring and community support. Each child signs a contract agreeing to maintain good grades, to remain drug and crime free, and to meet with his/her mentor regularly to receive the scholarship. Each student is assigned a caring adult mentor who meets with the student at his/her school for one hour each week.
Barbara Bush Foundation - Teen Trendsetters
Teen Trendsetters, a program of the Barbara Bush Foundation, serves academically at-risk students by providing mentoring activities through the Teen Trendsetter Reading Mentors (TTRM) to improve student performance. High school students are recruited and trained to mentor 3rd grade students in one-to-one reading sessions. These sessions may occur before, during or after school. The mentoring and reading materials for TTRM are designed for students at different reading levels and to incorporate different learning styles. The mentor training provides a practical hands-on approach to working with the mentee and the reading materials.
Florida State Alliance of YMCAs Program
The YMCA READS! Program provides mentoring and tutoring assistance to at-risk 1st and 2nd graders in reading. Using the Systematic Instruction in Phoneme Awareness, Phonics and Sight Words, the volunteer mentors not only assist students in their reading mechanics, but they also work to instill a love of reading and literature. First and 2nd graders are referred from low-performing schools or schools that have a high percentage of students scoring below grade level in reading. YMCA READS! site coordinators and volunteer mentors work with the students in small groups, on a 1:2 basis or on a 1:1 basis, mentoring the referred students in reading as well as character development and building self-esteem.
For more information on mentoring and student assistance initiative programs, please contact:Tiffany Chandler, Program Specialist
Phone: 850-245-0679
Tiffany.Chandler@fldoe.org