Last month, the Upper St. Clair High School mentoring team took on a new project at Fort Couch Middle School. Made up of about fifteen of this year’s junior mentors and the four super mentors, students from the high school went to Fort Couch after school to speak to the eighth graders during their period 7 about coming up to the high school.

That first meeting’s focus was on helping the future freshman schedule their classes for next year, along with answering any questions the eighth-graders have about making the transition from middle school to high school.

Eliza Luxbacher, a senior super mentor up at the high school, commented on what the team is hoping to gain from getting a head start on giving future freshman information about the high school.

“Our hope is to make the eighth graders more comfortable and excited about coming up to the high school and so that they can build relationships with older kids before they come up to the high school so that next year when they come here in the fall, they’ll already know some faces.”

One of the teachers in charge of the Mentor Program, Mr. Marquis, then said, “In the past, we’ve taken mentors over to help the eighth graders once towards at the end of the year, which was very beneficial, but we just felt there was a need to learn more information. The more information, the better.”

When students went to Fort Couch and spoke to the upcoming freshman class, mentors “divided and conquered” by splitting into groups of two mentors for each homeroom, filling all three teams over the course of three Days (Wednesday-Friday).

“The kids, I think, reacted to [the mentor meeting] really well,” says Luxbacher. “They asked questions; they were attentive and engaged in conversation. What we do is present to the full group to provide just some basic information and then the mentors divide the class into smaller groups to focus on more individualized questions, which worked out really well.”

Mrs. Kirk, another HS guidance counselor in charge of mentoring, came up with a slogan for the Fort Couch kids: “’I’m coming up to the high school, and I got this.’ This quote depicts perfectly what the mentoring program wants Fort Couch students to gain from the experience. Their job is to make freshmen’s lives easier, and through this program, they are doing just that.”

The mentoring team plans on continuing monthly visits to the Fort Couch classes for the rest of the school year to discuss with them other aspects of the high school.