The Safe Community Coalition’s (SCC) annual Middle-School Forum last week attempted to bridge the gap between middle- and high-school students to create mentoring and positive role-model opportunities for students. SCC members, students, teachers and counselors from Cooper and Longfellow middle schools and Langley, McLean and Thomas Jefferson high schools discussed a variety of issues that affect middle-school-age students.
“Kids really do open up. It’s invaluable for us to have this so that we can plan things in the future,” said SCC president Jan Auerbach. Parenting programs have developed out of these forums, according to Auerbach. For example, SCC will be hosting a program in the future to explain how instant messaging works and how it can be abused.
“It’s one thing to tell parents what their kids are doing; it’s another thing to tell them how to stop it,” said Auerbach.
During an adult focus group session, which included Dranesville District supervisor Joan DuBois and Auerbach along with educators and counselors, the need for social mentors for middle-school students was discussed.
Counselors said there are several risky behaviors they see young students engaging in, such as drugs, alcohol and sexual activity. “The kids who are considered popular are doing these risky behaviors,” said counselor Rachel McElroy. She added that having middle-school students work with older students would work because “they would love to have a high-school student pay any amount of attention to them.”
Area high schools are attempting to work out scheduling issues that make peer mentoring difficult. The problem, according to the group, is that the students who most need a social mentor are the least likely to stay after school to meet with a senior-high-school student.
Select eighth-graders leaving Cooper this year will be tapped to mentor students at that school next year.
One adult in the focus group commented that the mentoring program needs to proceed with caution, however, since the high-school students are not trained professionals and don’t have the wisdom of adults when faced with difficult decisions.
Some members of the community attending the forum felt too much emphasis was being put on the role of educators in stemming negative behaviors and activities. “Some of these issues we see coming back year after year. The same ones. It makes you wonder where the parents are in all of this. Teachers should teach. We can’t keep expecting them to be baby-sitters,” said Joan Morton.