Mentoring Program

As a school where “adults believe in the promise of every student,” we believe that students thrive when they are able to integrate the layers of learning that they experience on a daily basis both in and out of the classroom. Extensive research about adolescent development and cognitive neuroscience reveal that learning happens best in the context of a caring and supportive relationship. Our mentoring program seeks to integrate the academic and co-curricular experiences to build metacognitive skills such as time management, organization, and how to study, as well as deepen each student’s self-awareness about relating to others and caring for one’s self.

Ninth-grade mentors receive a single course release from the regular teaching load to give their mentees heightened and individualized attention and support during the critical first year. After the ninth-grade year, students maintain a coaching relationship with their mentor, receiving unparalleled support while continuing to grow, thrive, and exercise their own problem-solving and decision-making skills as young adults. Students stay with the same cluster and mentor through their entire time at UHS.

Individually, mentors work with students to review academic progress, set goals, discuss study strategies, brainstorm solutions to problems of all kinds, and conduct academic program planning. When appropriate, the mentor works with their own mentor coach, the dean of student life, the dean of teaching & learning, the learning specialist, and other specialists to provide students in need with more comprehensive support. The mentor is intended to be the single and central hub for a metaphorical wheel of support for each student, a person who knows the student in exhaustive detail. The adult mentors for a grade work as a team, with a mentor coach of their own providing support and feedback. We believe mentors are only able to provide support to students to the extent that they themselves are supported. This web of support extends to include all of the deans, so that the mentor coaches themselves also receive feedback and guidance from their own coaches.

During the ninth-grade year, mentors see their students at least twice each week, including at an academic/study-skill-focused group session on Mondays known as M&M, a connection/recharge-focused group session on Fridays known as Cluster. In later years, mentors and students meet each Friday for Cluster as a group, but also meet regularly on a more informal, individual basis. Based in these interactions, the mentor guides each student to make sense of his or her experience by taking time to reflect and plan appropriately for the opportunities and challenges inherent to being a teenager at a school like UHS. Additionally, particularly in 9th grade, mentors are in frequent communication with parents/guardians about what their child is seeing at school and will be soliciting feedback about their progress.