By Michaela Bishop
Northeast News
August 3, 2016

KANSAS CITY, Missouri – Northeast High School is always striving to help their students as much as possible. That’s why for the 2016-2017 school year, the freshman class at Northeast High School will be starting a new mentoring program, “My Brother’s Keeper.”

The program has been put in place to help students attend school daily and excel academically. Northeast High School (415 S. Van Brunt, KCMO 64124) held mentor sign-ups on July 27th in the school’s Viking library. The overall goal for this mentoring program is to remove obstacles standing in the way of the child, helping each student give their all.

Principal Doug Bolden, who oversees all the mentoring and progress, believes that this program will be a good thing for the students as well as teachers.

“The mentor will give feedback from the student to the teacher,” Bolden said. “With the attendance of the students, test scores begin to improve.”

Another main goal for the students and staff members at the school is to make connections throughout the community. Each mentor is from a different organization, whether that’s a business owner, college student or another field. The mentors are expected to show students how school relates to reality, and why it is so important to complete school in general.

The program strives to push the students up and build themselves up to their full potential. Assistant Principals Steven Belen and Jarius Jones are very excited to see how the mentor program sparks up. Jones is the newest addition to Northeast High School, and is looking forward to working with all the staff and mentors this upcoming school year.

“I really am excited for the program,” Jones said. “The program is all about how important education is.”

Mentors can start at any time and will be expected to at least go visit the students once a month, if not daily. The program is split up into four tiers: the first tier is 90% and above attendance, the second tier breaks into the 89-80% attendance range, the third tier is 79-70%, and the fourth tier is 69%-below attendance range. Mentors will be placed with certain attendance levels to make sure that the students benefit from the program.

Parents play a huge factor in “My Brother’s Keeper” as well. Mentors not only communicate with the teachers and students, but with the parents.

“We have to get permission from the parents to do the program in the first place,” Bolden said. “When we do, we continue to coordinate with the parents throughout the process.”

Vice Principal Belen has worked very hard to get the word out to many people, and the principals have done a lot of collaboration with the district and the community. This new program will help Northeast build their students and staff members, boost their attendance, and perhaps help the district gain their accreditation back.