A service of PENCIL Foundation, College-Career Mentors prepares ninth-grade students in Nashville public schools to make informed choices about post-secondary options and future vocations. The need for the program was identified through PENCIL’s collaboration with Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS), Mayor Karl Dean, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, and Alignment Nashville in transforming the city’s comprehensive high schools into smaller, career-based academies.
College-Career Mentors are volunteers representing a variety of professional backgrounds who are recruited, trained and placed by PENCIL to give small-group leadership and support to students in the Freshman Academy at each of 12 MNPS high schools.
College-Career Mentors will meet weekly with 3-5 students as they build personal skills, explore career choices, and comprehend the college-going culture.
Integrated with Freshman Seminar classes, College-Career Mentors reinforce what students are already learning in the classroom by helping students:
- Explore occupational options and understand how Career Academies prepare students for future careers.
- Understand the importance of making wise academic choices during high school.
- Understand how these choices will help them graduate from high school and reach their chosen career goals.
- Develop essential workplace skills, including team-building, networking and communication.
- Discover both traditional and alternative post-secondary educational pathways to desired career placement.
Click HERE for the Metro Nashville Public Schools Professional Skills Rubric – a tool used by teachers and mentors to help get students thinking about “soft skills” in their everyday life.
Interested in being a Career Mentor? Please register on www.schoolvolunteers.org and someone will contact you soon!
College-Career Mentors must complete a background screen so please complete this FORM and fax back to PENCIL at 254-6748.
Funders:
Healthways Foundation
The HCA Foundation and Hope Fund
AT&T
Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee
U.S. Bankcorp Foundation
The NewsChannel 5 Network
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