When you show genuine interest in high school students, they tell you all kinds of things: how their favorite possession is a picture of their grandma, how they studied for their driver’s test, why they think that mineral-mining might be the job for them, why Shakespeare isn’t all that hard, how anxiety trips them up when they sit down to take a test.
Volunteers in ECCA’s Community-School Partnership (CSP) program in Washougal High School want to hear all this. That’s because the more comfortable students are with us, the more ready they’ll be to dig into classwork that, up to now, has been hard for them. Biology, geometry, physics, history, English, algebra – students come to us for help in all these subjects. When we take the time to create supportive relationships with them, our mentors – all volunteers from the community, most without any professional background in education – can help students make serious academic progress.
How do we know?
In the 2024-25 school year, the third year of the CSP program, we were lucky enough to have Portland State University data science students rigorously evaluate the program’s impact on students’ grades. The study was conducted under the guidance of professors as part of a required practicum. It looked at not just whether mentored students’ grades rose, fell, or stayed the same in a particular class, but how they did compared to classmates not being mentored.
Jay, my mentor, has been very thorough and helpful, giving me the right help I need. He helped me understand.
~ Chemistry student
In the end, we learned for a fact what we’d long suspected, and what teachers and students themselves had been confirming anecdotally. The program has a strong effect on the students’ grades in the class in which they’re being mentored, typically helping them catch up to their classmates. And the more consistently students attend – ideally, once a week – the better they do.
As an unexpected bonus, participation in CSP mentoring also boosts students’ grades in their other classes. It’s worth asking why that would be. We can only assume that during mentoring, students are learning more than, say, how to bisect an angle or analyze a short story. In addition to those subject-specific skills, they seem to be growing in more universal ways – in their confidence, in their study skills, maybe in their connection to school itself. Something else is happening, and we believe our focus on relationship-building – the thing that makes this a mentoring rather than tutoring program – is behind it.
One of the things the PSU evaluation reinforced for us is that consistency and structure matter. Students self-refer to mentoring or are referred by teachers or counselors. Either way, they commit to the program up front, and they are paired with a mentor they will see for the duration of their time in the program.
Teachers communicate weekly with mentors about what students need to work on. In the ideal scenario, teachers and mentors leave a running set of notes for one another about how each student is responding to mentoring – whether, in the end, they are more engaged in class, completing more work, performing better on quizzes and tests. This ongoing conversation allows mentors to prepare for sessions and to try new approaches if necessary.
I noticed better retention and comprehension. Also
greater work completion.
~ History teacher
Our 15 mentors have worked with about 200 students over three years, some for short periods, others for a whole academic year. All sessions take place on-site at the school, during the school day.
As demand for this program grows, so does our need for adult volunteers. Do you have knowledge to share and a desire to coach a student to success? If so, consider joining us. Though we encourage volunteers across the range of subjects, our biggest current needs are in geometry and algebra, and for volunteers who are bilingual in Spanish.
This year’s CSP mentoring program will start up again in late September, and we will add mentors throughout the year as students join. There is no deadline to apply, but if you want to explore this wonderful opportunity, letting us know sooner rather than later helps us to plan.
Learn more about the CSP program and apply to become a mentor here.
In the photo at top, Jonathan Faulkner, a mentor in the Community-School Partnership program, works with a geometry student.
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