BY SYDNEY HOOVER
Eudora High School senior Maddie Underwood spends an hour at the elementary school to play at recess with a third grader and help a fourth grader with homework every Monday and Tuesday .
Underwood and 10 of her classmates act as mentors to elementary students as part of a test run for a program they could pitch to the School Board in May. Underwood hopes eventually the program could become an elective class for high school students.
“I think it would just help our community overall because there would just be more of a connection between all of the schools,” Underwood said. “Because Eudora is getting bigger, I think it would help keeping the small town feel.”
The program was developed as part of a CAPstone — a civic action project — for the seniors’ honors government class. Aside from the mentorship program, 23 other proposals for the School Board and City Commission have been developed, from adding LED lights to all district buildings to bringing a therapy dog to the schools to allowing seniors to go part time after fulfilling their credits required for graduation.
Government teacher Chris Dunback developed the CAPstone idea to create the honors government class. He gave students the choice to pick an issue to focus on within the school, district, city, state or world, but encouraged students to choose a topic within Eudora.
“They’ve learned about politics, they’ve learned about all sorts of things in government,” Dunback said. “And then they’re supposed to pick something that they care about and are passionate about changing and do something about it.”
Dunback required students to research why their idea doesn’t exist already, talk face to face with people relevant to the topic and develop a policy change.
Students hope to present their projects the second week of April to Eudora High School teachers, who will then choose the top three projects to share with the School Board in May for consideration.
“Whether or not it happens next year or down the road, they’re all pretty darn good ideas,” Dunback said. “There’s things that we can do that aren’t that hard, right? They would just require some commitment and some research and some purchasing of new materials.”
Dunback said he could see Underwood’s project being permanently implemented within the district. He said the students have already received positive feedback from Eudora Elementary teachers.
Aside from just helping elementary students, Underwood said she also sees the mentorship program motivating high schoolers by giving them something to look forward to each week and keeping them out of trouble knowing they have younger students looking up to them.
“We were thinking about having it more junior and senior based, but I personally think it would be cool if a couple sophomores did it so they could like grow up with their student they’re mentoring,” Underwood said.
Dunback said he hopes the projects, regardless of if they are adopted by the school district, will teach students valuable skills, such as the art of persuasion and understanding the perspective of others. He said in a world where politics is filled with “screaming and yelling,” he wants this project to show students how to productively problem solve.
“I’m just really proud of them,” Dunback said. “We’re all going to learn about what worked and what didn’t, but I’m hoping that they can look back on this and when they come back thinking they actually left their mark.”
Reach reporter Sydney Hoover at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
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