Travis County Commissioners Court
January 22, 2008
Item 3
Number 3 is to approve proclamation recognizing the month of January, 2008 as mentoring month in Travis County. And we'll go back and pick up the consent items after this one. Mr. Nellis, should I read your proclamation?
>> please, please.
>> it reads, whereas January 2008 is national mentoring month, whereas students with mentors are 75 percent less likely to drob out of school, whereas schools with mentoring programs report 76 percent increase in school attendance rate, 84 percent increase in students passing classes, 60 percent decline in suspensions from school. 58 percent of students achieving higher grades. Whereas students with mentors are 46% less likely to start using drugs, 27 percent less likely to start using alcohol, 33 percent he is less likely to hit someone, and whereas many opportunities are available to volunteer as a mentor, including Austin partners in education, www.austinpartners.org. The seedling foundation. Communities and schools, big brothers, bit sisters and many more. And now therefore be it resolved that the Travis County Commissioners court proclaim the month of January, 2008 as mentoring month in Travis County, Texas and encourage Travis County employees to participate as mentors to Austin Travis County area students. Be it further resolved that the Commissioners court encourages Travis County supervisors to allow employees a flexible work schedule in order to allow them to participate as a mentor while performing their county responsibilities. And I guess you also want us to encourage Travis County residents to serve as mentors.
>> that's correct.
>> second.
>> judge, Commissioners, thank you for this proclamation. We're pleased to have catherine brewer here with us today. She is the executive director of Austin partners in education. And I’d like to turn it over to catherine and if she has a few words.
>> thank you. Good morning. And I’d first like to say I’ve been an executive director of Austin partners in education now for almost four years and one of the first people I met was leroy and we are so grateful to have his health and his advocacy of mentors in the community. I don't know how many people know that lee row has something about mentors on the back of his business card and his christmas card every year talks about mentoring.
>> those of us who see him once a year.
>> we love leroy. What I’d like to put on record is the -- most people -- people who are involved know this, but the wider community may not know that student poverty has increased from 42 to 68 percent in the last six years. We estimate that we have about 3,000 mentors between partners in education, big brothers big sisters, communities in schools and the seedling foundation in the central Texas area. The need is approximately 50,000 mentors if that gives you a scale of the need. We have put -- this functions as the clearinghouse for mentors. We put a lot of systems in place now. We've translated from a paper system to an online system that does an instant background check and takes 200 national and f.b.i. Sex offender databases and we're able to process mentors quickly and give every mentor that best chance of having a very high functioning relationship with a student. So we very much -- I think some people in the past maybe have felt that they monitored and they didn't work as well as they had hoped and we have best practices in place now in all of the schools and we can -- I can't say we can guarantee. We have a lot higher chance of every mentor having a very positive and successful relationship with the students. And it's very important at this point in the students' lives to have that sort of relationship. So we'd like to encourage as many people as possible to participate.
>> sarah wechsler, the executive director with the seedling foundation, had intended to attend because but she had a conflicting appointment. I would like to say that the seedling foundation, formerly the Travis County community education foundation, works very closely with Austin partners in education. And their focus is recruiting mentors for those children that have incarcerated parents. As you know that 85% of the incarcerated people in this county have either a close family member or a close relative that had previously been incarcerated. So it is extremely important that we were able to furnish mentors. And I would encourage all of the Travis County employees and all the travis community to see if they couldn't -- it takes one hour a week and I can tell you that I receive as much or more from the experience than what I give. So I would encourage it. Thank you.
>> thank you. Appreciate your good work. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. We do have multiple originals for you here.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 23, 2008 8:09 PM