A three-way collaboration between HACES, United Way of Lake County and the Waukegan public schools gives students more attention in the classroom, and parents an opportunity to both understand what happens in school and a potential career path.
Starting in the 2021-2022 term at a single Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 elementary school, Parent Mentors will be placing parents in a number of rooms at five elementary schools when the program begins in early September.
“The mentors work with students in a classroom, and learn how the education system works,” Alicia Garcia, HACES’ (Hispanic American Community Education and Services) director of programs, said. “It teaches how to advocate for your own child.”
Parent Mentors recruits parents of children in their youngster’s school to help students with academic and social emotional learning in five Waukegan elementary schools for most of the school year.
Gale Graves, United Way’s vice president of community impact, said her organization reached out to HACES last year to see how the two groups could work together to better the community. Parent Mentors and early childhood education was an ideal situation.
“They have resources to educate children and families so they can be successful in the long-term,” Graves said. “HACES is a trusted community resource with long-standing trust in the community.”
After working together this summer in District 60’s kindergarten readiness camp for children starting school for the first time, Garcia said HACES and United Way were ready to continue their partnership with the schools.
“It allowed us to expand the program to five schools,” Garcia said.
Parents will be functioning as mentors in classrooms at North, Glen Flora, Glenwood, Carman-Buckner and Lyon Magnet elementary schools this school year.
North Principal Nicole Lemberger said there were six mentors a year ago, she hopes to have eight to 10 this year and she would like to have one for each classroom, though she admits that might be optimistic. They assist with reading, writing and math.
“They give students a strong growth consistency,” she said. “They can work in monolingual, bilingual and diverse learner classrooms. They learn skills to help them parent their own children at home.”
Lemberger said the mentors help expand learning because they can work with one group of students, while the teacher helps another and the paraprofessional assists still a third. Without them, the small groups cannot function simultaneously.
“It’s a teaching model for partnership,” she said. “It improves (students’) skills with immediate feedback. It’s much better than having to do it working with a Chromebook.”
Garcia said the program seeks parents who have a child in the building. The mentor will not be in their own youngster’s classroom. They work two hours a day Mondays through Thursdays, and on Friday spend three hours receiving professional development.
When a mentor has accumulated 100 hours in a semester, they receive a stipend of $1,500. They could earn as much as $3,000 for the school year. A year ago, it was $1,000 a semester. Garcia said the collaboration with United Way made the increase possible.
Graves said part of the goal is to recruit a diverse group of mentors who reflect the face of Waukegan. She hopes to see English-speakers, Spanish-speakers and those who are bilingual.
“We’ve added equity, allowing us to positively reflect the school district’s diversity,” Graves said. “We want the students to see people who look like them in the classroom.”
Along with developing classroom skills as mentors, Garcia said some of the mentors are recent immigrants to the United States. They develop an understanding of how to get on a career path.
After time as a mentor, Garcia said some parents have gone to work for District 60 as receptionists or lunchroom attendants. Others received training to become paraprofessionals in classrooms, with the potential to get the education to become teachers. Still more go to work for HACES.
“One is a full-time HACES employee as the DACA coordinator,” Garcia said. “Four of the five mentor coordinators were mentors. They work 20 hours a week and get paid $20 an hour.”
