Travis County Commssioners Court
January 6, 2004
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Item 15
15. Review and take appropriate action on request to broadcast mentor recruiting tape on channel 17.
>> how are you doing, leroy?
>> yes. The January is national mentor month. And I would be getting on the agenda a proclamation for the court to designate January for next week's agenda. In the meantime, one of the things that we have been working on with aisd and an individual by the name of terry laugh lynn is a -- luughlin is a mentoring tape to show on the local access tv's, on Travis County. I understand that it will be shown on the aisd channel. And on the city channel. In an effort to recruit more mentors. I think all of you know that -- that kind of my passion for the last three or four years has been to increase the number of people involved in the mentor program with aisd and the other school districts. I think that it's -- it's real clear that the -- the statistics that the national dropout prevention center has identified, the students would mentors are 75% less likely to drop out of school. With the fact that there's a direct correlation between juvenile crime and students dropping out of school, it -- it is -- it has been one of my priorities for an hour a week to volunteer at allen elementary over at alison elementary and a couple more schools in order to talk with these high risk children. I will say there's flexibility in the program, one hour a week normally people mentor during their lunch hour. With the kids, have lunch with the kids. And you have to understand that these children in these high risk environments did not have the vision or they cannot connect the dots between performing in elementary school and going to college or playing professional professional basketball, which all of them want to do. That's what these mentors are really friends, put the vision in these children to help themselves behave and make better grades, stay in school. So my request to the court would be to periodically show this recruiting film that a former mayor, gus garcia, myself, several others put together with terry laughlin to be used and put together in the recruiting efforts. I think al is probably ready to show about four minutes. It's about a 10 minute tape.
>> today I'm going to talk to you a little bit about mentoring, a function that we all need to perform to give back to our community. It is something that all of us need to do. If we want to have a city that is strong and ready to -- to head into the 21st century. [ music playing ]
>> she got me to reading and now -- now that I'm really good at reading, I like reading.
>> you get to have fun with the mentor. And have somebody to talk to, a very good friend.
>> so the mentor, it doesn't make any difference where you work or what you do. The mentor can come in, work with the student, and show them the importance of -- of getting a good education. Show what he needs to do to -- to -- that he or she needs to do to perform well in school.
>> I did as much as I could. Being a pilot it's kind of busy for me. Based in three different places, dallas, fort worth, new york, I'm currently based in l.a. Which keeps me out of town quite a bit. But that was never a problem for me and my volunteering. As long as they promised they didn't care what day I would come, I would come and read and spend time with the kids, try to provide a positive influence on their lives, they were happy to have me.
>> I had gotten school supplies, they had gotten me school supplies, he got me even more better school supplies.
>> she showed me around her -- her office, and where -- where she works. And it's really a nice place.
>> as far as it being feasible, it is very feasible. It is something that can be done very easily. You work in the morning, at noon you go eat lunch, sit down, talk to the -- the student that you have and normally, to be quite frank with you, in the traditional lower socio-economic schools, you are going to mentor one student, but that student is going to bring their friends. So you sit down and talk to five or six kids because those kids also are in need of an adult that they can talk to about what the future holds.
>> so it turns out I really didn't have to prepare anything. It was just the time that it took to go down to the school, and eat lunch with that child and come back. It was -- it was really nieto find out that I could make a huge difference like that in the life of a child in just really half an hour out of my day which is no more time than I would normally spend going to lunch, eating lunch, coming back to the office. It's really actually easy and I think anybody could do it.
>> mostly my whole class.
>> in my class.
>> being a mentor in aisd is really easy. All that you have to do is contact an elementary school in your neighborhood, near your work and share with them your interest in becoming a mentor you on can simply call the school district and ask to be connected to the mentoring department and they will hook you up with the school. It's really ease, you can even suggest what type of child that you would like. If there's a certain ethnic background that you are interested in, a certain part of town that you are interested in. Mentors can come any time. Of course lunch time is the best time because it's not during an academic time. But we just want mentors. So we will work with mentors to see that -- make sure that they can come in at any time in the mornings, possibly after school, sometimes we just even make special connections with families so that the mentor can be part of their life on Saturday. You can also decide on what grade level that you would like to work with. If you want a boy or a girl or -- so it's a real easy things to do and it's exciting very rewarding ... I think -- this is pickle elementary school but other elementary schools --
>> all elementaries, all middle schools and all high schools have a mentoring program that anyone that they would like to volunteer to be a mentor can call aisd, 414-4512. Essentially get an application, I have applications for the Travis County employees. It involves a one-hour orientation that we have set up at the juvenile court training room once a month. The next one is January the 22nd. From 12:00 to 1:00. It's actually like 45 minutes, so people get there and they can get back to work. And then we -- there's a -- there's a criminal background check that all people that want to be mentors that fill out, we run that through aisd. And then essentially match up with the school and the grade level and the student. So it's a very easy process. There are a lot of Travis County employees that are mentoring. The -- Commissioner Gomez, Commissioner Sonleitner, Commissioner Davis has been over and photo mentored. He took pictures with some of my little children. Sheriff margo frasier, photo mentored at allen. Judge lynch has recently taken on an entire class in allen elementary school. They have juvenile probation. Employees. Cscd employees working, my staff mentor over at allen. I think with this tape it's well done with former mayor being the primary speaker to recruit the entire community. To do meshtoring, spend one -- to do mentoring, spends one hour a week in a school. You really establish a relationship with some interesting children and that is very satisfying. The -- I think the mentor takes away from the relationship as much benefit as the child takes from the mentor. So my request is to periodically play the tape on channel 17. And we will bring back a proclamation next week for the court. [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> can you restate the telephone number.
>> the contact person for aisd is robert mendoza at 414-4512.
>> thank you.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> so we need a lot of mentors.
>> move that we authorize showing this tape on channel 17.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you, leroy. Great job. Thank you very much.
Last Modified: TUesday, January 6, 2004 6:25 PM