Electronic Peer Mentoring Initiative Aims to Help MVUSD Students Succeed

On Dec. 14 nearly 70 ninth-grade students from Moreno Valley Unified School District (MVUSD) gathered at the district office for a morning of learning. The reason? They wanted to learn how to use their new Chromebooks in their roles as peer mentors to over 320 sixth grade English learner students as part of the federally funded grant program, CLMS English Learner Families For College — Moreno Valley USD. “I became a peer mentor so I can help kids reach wherever they want to,” said ninth grader Allen P. “It seemed like it would be fun.” The Chromebook training was peppered by lively exchanges as teams of peer mentors — joined by three MVUSD school board members, senior district staff, four high school counselors, staff from the California League of Middle Schools and volunteer youth leaders — participated in activities designed to help them consider what it means to be a mentor and take part in online discussions on Edmodo, a Facebook-like education application. If the ninth grade students complete all four school years of the peer mentor portion of the grant project, they get to keep their Chromebook for college — and receive a $1,000 college scholarship once they are enrolled in the institution of their choice. Brian Diaz is a ninth grader who is working as a peer mentor. His father, Douglas, said his taking this leadership role is typical of his disposition. "He has a passion to help others," Douglas said. "He is a real blessing and an example to other kids. He came to me and told me he wanted to do this and I said okay, I support you in helping others and wanting to mentor." Valley View High School ninth grader Jocelyn Vivanco said, "I wanted to be a peer mentor because I think it's a good way to help other students with things they don't know about. I feel really privileged." Vivanco said she was one of 13 out of 30 students from Valley View High School who were chosen as mentors, after going through the application and interviewing process for the role. While the majority of the Families For College project is funded by the U.S. Department of Education, philanthropic partners played roles in making the project possible. This past summer, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians awarded a grant to California League of Middle Schools (CLMS), a nonprofit organization and the lead agency for the grant project, to purchase 72 Chromebooks for the peer mentors. The Chromebooks will serve as the avenue for all communications between mentors and mentees until the younger students make the transition from middle to high school students. While peer mentoring has been studied fairly extensively by researchers, electronic peer mentoring has received limited attention. Families For College is part of the prestigious USDE Investing In Innovation (i3) program and has a strong research component. Any gains made through the electronic peer mentoring initiative could therefore set a standard for the nation. It is the hope of CLMS staff that the bond formed between mentors and mentees over the Chromebooks will ease the transition to high school for the mentees and reduce the high percentage of English learner high school dropouts. California’s 1.4 million English learners represent nearly a quarter of the state’s public school student population.