LASER opportunities and history of the program
Mentors
LASER continues the tradition at nearby Lane Middle School and partnering with Portland Impact's Mentoring to Achieve Potential Program. Mentors commit to a full school year of mentoring a middle school student at Lane. Mentoring qualifies for the off-campus federal work study internship program.
Download a mentor volutneer job description
Download a mentor application due September 7, 2007
Interns
The yearlong Reed College interns are chosen through a competitive written application and group interview process. Once selected the interns are given a tour of Lane Middle School. The interns participate in an evening long orientation and meet weekly to check in, maintain a support network, and plan larger activities. Each intern travels to Lane twice a week to make solid connections with Lane students and learn the inner workings of the school. The year is devoted to team-taught after-school classes, which occur every week Monday through Thursday, usually once or twice a week. The interns are also responsible for co-designing and participating in each semester's Activity Day, as well as developing final projects for their after-school classes, which are presented to both Lane and Reed at the end of the year. Interning qualifies for the off-campus federal work study internship program.
Download an intern volutneer job description
Download an intern application due September 7, 2007
Writing Tutoring
We will be developing a new writing tutoring program during the 2007-2008 school year. Please email SEEDS intern Charli Krause for more information. Tutoring qualifies for the off-campus federal work study internship program.
History
At the beginning of spring semester 2001 the volunteer office coordinator at Harriet Tubman Middle School informed several Reed interns of the school's dire need for one-on-one mentors. A list had been compiled of over 90 Tubman students who were placed, or had requested to be placed, on a mentor waiting list due to their academic, social, or disciplinary problems. The Reed-Tubman partnership responded immediately to this need in two ways. First, the partnership's yearlong interns volunteered to each mentor a student once a week in addition to their already pledged commitment to work as teachers' aides and team-teach after-school classes.
Second, the partnership advertised at Reed College for new volunteers to mentor a minimum of one student for one hour, once a week. After a short application and interview process, six committed Reed students were hired to volunteer at Harriet Tubman as part of the partnership's new satellite mentor program. The mentors were given a tour of Harriet Tubman led by the Vice principal, Carla Sosanya, on February 20-21, 2001, and began mentoring the following Monday. The program continued and has shown great success. Each mentor was responsible for structuring each hour-long session with the Harriet Tubman students. Focus ranges from academic help and tutoring to simply providing a stable and consistent older figure in the students' lives. The mentors wrote a short weekly summary of their individual sessions to ensure a level of professionalism throughout their relationship with the Tubman students as well as maintaining a feeling of cohesiveness within the larger Reed-Tubman partnership.
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