Anderson County Schools Adopt Revolutionary New Approach to Student Mentoring Program

When Anderson County Family Resource Center Directors Crystal Crouch and Sarah McGaughey began planning their programming for the 2023–2024 school year, they knew they wanted to take the district’s already successful student/community member mentoring program to a new level.

After reading “The Resilience Factor” by Karen Reivich & Andrew Shatte’, Crouch and McGaughey approached the school counselors at Anderson County’s three elementary schools (Emma B.Ward, Saffell Street and Robert B. Turner) about embarking on a joint professional growth opportunity with one goal in mind: to encourage the 60+ students in the mentoring program to rise above adversity.

The school counselors read the book over the summer of 2023 and began planning. Each school counselor took a different chapter from the book and created lessons, follow-up activities and discussion questions around the key concepts and designed lessons with their students in mind. These lessons were stored in a Google Drive and each school consistently delivered the same material each month.

Teachers nominated students for the monthly mentoring program and parents gave permission to join. Not only did community members jump on board, but Anderson County district administrative staff (including Superintendent Sheila Mitchell) signed on to serve as one-on-one mentors for students, raising the collaboration to new levels.

At the first session of the year, students joined their community and district-level mentors for a one-hour session that included an icebreaker activity, lunch prepared by Anderson County High School culinary students and a targeted lesson centered on resilience. Lesson topics included avoiding negative thought traps, self-awareness, challenging beliefs, attempting hard things and putting things into perspective.

Almost immediately, school staff noticed the impact this joint effort had on student motivation and thinking. The members of the program in grades 3–5 began using vocabulary from the lessons to describe obstacles in their own lives. Students were overheard telling their peers to “never give up.” Community members shared their personal stories of reframing negative thoughts and “bouncing back” from the struggles of life. Parents relayed examples of resilience becoming a topic of conversation at home.

This joint professional learning endeavor by the family resource center directors, district administrative staff and the school counselors provided a rare opportunity for both adults and students to expand their horizons and embrace a new way of thinking.

As the year winds down, it is time to once again join forces and plan for the future. In Anderson County, this most certainly will include creativity and collaboration with many different professionals. This makes for an exciting year and an impactful program that will hopefully last for many more years to come!

For more information regarding the Anderson County Schools mentoring program, please email Robert B. Turner Elementary school counselor Amy Riley at amy.riley@anderson.kyschools.us.

Amy Riley is KSCA Board liaison to the Kentucky Association of School Administrators and KSCA president-elect for 2024–2025.