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MENT for You
The
Star
City High School EAST lab is
beginning its third year of the "MENT
for You" mentoring program for students. The
EAST lab, in collaboration with the
Criminal Justice Institute
of the
University
of
Arkansas,
began the first mentoring program in
Arkansas
in 2007, under the leadership of Krista Wells.
This mentoring program was designed to help
prevent future teens from
dropping out of high school,
which is becoming an increasing problem in our
state. Liza Dejesus and Sara Smith are leading
the 2010-2011 year of “MENT for You”.
In
past years, Mr. Don Bebee, of the
University of Arkansas Criminal Justice
Institute
helped train mentors from grades eleventh and
twelfth who began a one-on-one relationship with
a third through fifth grader. This will be
done again for this year’s mentors.
Once a week the mentors will
visit their mentees. A mentor’s job includes
helping the student with class work,
attendance, and behavior problems. Candace
Price, a former mentor, stated, “The best part
about being a mentor is seeing my mentee’s
progress.” Mentors wanted to inspire mentees to
stay in school and one day be a role model to
others.
After a year of mentoring is
completed, the mentees will attend the high
school for their Mentee Reward Luncheon with
their mentors. This experience shows the mentees
what it is like to be a high school student and
the benefits of staying in school.
Hopefully seeing the mentor’s success in high
school will inspire the mentees to not only
graduate but also to further their education
and be a mentor to a younger student their
selves. “MENT
for You” has had a positive effect on both the
mentees and mentors and we hope it will continue
again this year with new leadership and new
mentors/mentees.
Take it On
When opposing teams and
visitors come to our football stadium their
first impression of Star City High School is our
facilities. At a Friday night football game a
visitor stated “The bathrooms are too small and
why is it so dirty?” The bathrooms have been
there the longest and Star City’s EAST “Take It
On” group is ready to show it some well deserved
attention.
The paint in the bathrooms has grown tired over
the years. “Take It On” is looking forward to
refreshing the bathrooms with some new paint.
The women’s bathroom is missing mirrors;
installing mirrors in the bathrooms is another
priority for the group. They will also power
wash the inside and outside of the bathrooms.
“Hopefully painting and cleaning the facilities
at the football field will show improvement and
make the first impressions of visitors better,”
group member Justin Huddleston stated.
“Take it On” knows that painting is just a quick
fix, so they are going to create a new layout
for the concession stand and the bathrooms.
Using Google Sketch Up, the group will design a
new architectural design to propose to the
school. This will not only help the school, it
will also help the group, teaching them how to
use architectural software.
“Take It On” members,
Justin Huddleston, Haley Dreher, and Kyle Davis,
cannot wait to take on this project.
Not Now, I'm Driving
We as young adults have realized the dangers of
cell phone use while driving. We decided to be
advocates to better ensure that the younger
generations, as well as older, eliminate
distractions while driving. Our project goal is
to better educate the public about the safety
precautions that they should take, to be
responsible, and to be aware of unsafe
conditions. We plan to create a video, a virtual
tour, and statistics represented in graphs and
tables.
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EAST Night Out
Star City High School’s EAST Night Out
was a huge success, held on Tuesday, November 9th
at the
High School. There were close to 150
visitors who
attended and 40 student presenters who helped
make this event happen.
EAST Night Out was an open
house to the community, business leaders, and
parents to show them what EAST students are
doing to help our community. Visitors had the
opportunity to view different stations and learn
about projects and the technology involved with
it. One project that drew a lot of attention was
“Females Can Do It Too: How to Maintain Your
Vehicle”. This
project was important to students because many
females are abducted from the side of a road
because their car has broken down.
If females know how to change a flat
tire, etc., they can get back on the road
sooner. The
Hispanic Culture project gave information
about the culture of Hispanic people, which is a
growing population in our area.
Liza De Jesus and Sara Smith informed
visitors of the “MENT for You” project which is
aimed at preventing
high school drop outs, and Keith
Chambliss and Blake Borecky spoke with those
interested in the “Not Now, I’m Driving”
projects which hopes to decrease the number of
people who text and drive. A very important
project underway is the “Vial
Of Life “Project.
Students McKensey Stover, Darien
Washington, Julie Chambers and Jarrett Frizzell
explained that the vial given to community
members will speak for them when they cannot
speak for themselves during an emergency
situation.
Some of the technology used included
Virtual Reality with Chris Kiernan
showing a virtual tour he did last summer of
West Point in New York and with Jarrett
Frizzell showing his virtual tour of the high
school.
Curtis Price and Jorge Acuchi showed the
software ArcView, which is a Geographic
Information System program.
With this software they have created maps
of
Star City important places and maps of
Lincoln County showing poultry farms, and
cemeteries. Alyssa
Smith and Harley Cotton demonstrated the
software Sketch-Up which is an
architectural design program.
Lukas Steed also demonstrated an
architectural program called Archicad. Several
videography projects were shown, also using the
video editing program
Final Cut Pro.
Interim Superintendent Sandra Lanehart stated, “I
had a great time. I was absolutely awed by
what those kids can do. Congratulations to
you and the EAST students”.
Females Can Do It Too
The project, Females Can Do It Too, is to teach
females the basics of fixing their automobiles.
We plan to teach females how to fix a flat tire,
change the oil and air filters, etc. We want to
show females that it doesn’t take a man to fix
the simplest things on a vehicle most of the
time. Females need to learn how to take care of
their vehicles so it will last longer and for
safety reasons. In this economy, people may not
have the money to buy a brand new car, so we
want to teach them how to take care of it. We
want to show our presentation to 10th,
11th, and 12th grade girls
and boys in the auditorium by December.
Vial of Life
Our project, Vial of Life, will benefit the
elders of Lincoln County. When EMT’s arrive at
the home, they need certain medical information
that the person might not be in any condition to
provide. We are going to host a luncheon at the
civic center where the vials will be distributed
to anyone older than 60 years of age. We hope
that if they are in need of medical assistance,
the information in the vials will assist the
paramedics in providing accurate medical
attention.
Click here for the Vial of Life website
K-9 Advocacy
K-9
advocacy wants to try to turn the dog pound into
a shelter, but if they can’t manage to do that,
they want to fix it up a little to make life
easier on the dogs. They also want to extend the
euthanization date because they are killing the
animals too soon. They plan to collaborate with
a group at the middle school that is working on
the same topic. They want to make a website to
show what dogs are in the pound so people can
see if there are any dogs that they want to
claim. They are going to make flyers to try to
convince people to adopt from the dog pound and
show the website they will make.
Click here to go to the K-9 website
Helping Hands
Helping Hands project addresses the problem of
students who become uninterested in school at an
early age. In our project we plan on mentoring
the K-2nd grade classes at JBE.
We will work with the teacher as she
identifies those students in need of help
academically or behaviorally.
This project is a precursor to the MENT
For You program aimed at 3rd – 5th
grade. We plan on doing this during our 2nd
period
EAST class.
Keep the Natural State Natural
This project is to inform adults and young
adults who are looking for a bargain, ways to
help the planet, and keep our state (Arkansas)
natural.
We are going to help them by sending out
brochures, making a video and a website for
people to view. This project will send out
brochures to the elementary students and people
at Health Department. This project plan is to
help people in Star City, Arkansas in the future
and today’s time.
Project Freshmen
The goal of this project is to educate freshmen
and parents about the high school’s classes and
programs. The group feels that with better
knowledge of the school before the beginning of
the year will lead to a better overall
experience.
Community Improvement
There is a growing concern about the appearance
of our town.
Many areas of Star City have aged, and/or
have been neglected.
We hope to encourage our elected
officials and community members to take pride in
their property and take steps to make
improvements.
This project will benefit the community
because it will improve the look and quality of
our town and attract businesses.
Some
solutions may be fixing up old buildings, adding
plants, mowing grass, picking up litter, adding
sidewalks, and anything else that will help the
community.
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