K-12 Dive Highlights Baldwin High School Mentoring Program
Excerpt from article:
Mentorship is a priority in New York’s Baldwin Union Free School District.
The school system, located on Long Island, has provided faculty-to-student mentoring to Baldwin High School students for more than 25 years, with teachers, administrators and coaches offering sustained guidance on goals and challenges, from academics to social-emotional needs to future careers.
Baldwin broadened those efforts to include students at its middle school in September 2022.
The original program began in 2001 with only five mentors and five mentees, with the idea of developing student-teacher relationships. Over time, the goal has broadened toward not only developing relationships but also guiding postsecondary planning — and it has expanded to 70 mentor-mentee pairs, with students at the middle and high schools chosen based on who seems to need the guidance, said Gabriella Franza, assistant director of instructional programs.
Baldwin also added a student-to-student mentoring initiative in the 2024-25 school year called the Peer2Peer Path Program, in which 9th and 10th graders are paired with an upperclassman.