AMBOY – When junior high and high school students went to school for the first day of the 2024-25 school year on August 15, they weren’t the only ones new to the classroom.
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AMBOY – When junior high and high school students went to school for the first day of the 2024-25 school year on August 15, they weren’t the only ones new to the classroom.
Abby Holldorf and Kaya Stringer are new to Amboy schools and new to the Regional Office of Education 47, where they’ve taken unique roles as mentors in the first-year ROE Student Mentor Program at Amboy Junior High and Amboy High School.
“We love the program and we think the students love it as well,” said Stringer, a 2020 Sterling High School graduate who received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Iowa. “We get feedback from our students and what they think about the program and report it at monthly Regional Office of Education meetings. It’s a piloting program, so we want to improve things that can be improved.
“I let my students know ahead of time, I am not a counselor. You can utilize me as a counselor, but technically, I am not one. I think students talk to people more when they know you’re not a counselor.”
Although Stringer and Holldorf are not counselors, it’s hard to really say what they are with one word.
They’re not teachers either.
“We’ve had to change a lot of wording for the program because they think we’re counselors,” said Holldorf, who graduated from Sterling in 2015, worked in a school for a while, then was a home visitor for mothers and their new children before receiving a bachelor’s degree in behavioral health science in 2022. “ A student suggested to us that we’re more like a student resource. I like that because we’re not counselors and we’re not teachers. I think it’s important for the students to know that we are a resource. We’re here to mentor and help make school and learning as easy as it can be.
“I think Kaya and I being able to switch hats and help them in any way we can is another reason the program is working so well. It’s not just about their mental health, their grades, or their behavior, it’s about everything they have going one that we try to help them with.”
Holldorf is the AHS mentor, while Stringer is the AJHS mentor.
However, there is plenty of overlap as the two have become a team ready to help any student who enters their room.
“it’s going really well. We’re a really good team when it comes to bouncing ideas and getting feedback,” Holldorf said. “We’re able to discuss what we think and put those ideas into action. I think the program is going well because we’re a good team and try to make it better every day.
“Through our relationship, we’re able to create wonderful, positive relationships with the students also. They know they can come to us with things and if we have anything we want to say to them, we’re able to approach them to see what we can do better to help them.”
Both mentors try to help with everything, but Stringer is already known to be the one to go to if a student needs math help.
“It’s awesome because both Abbie and I can help them in any way,” Stringer said. “We’re here for support. Abbie has said it before, supporting the students is our No. 1 priority. I’m better at math, so if they need assistance, Abbie sends them to me. There are things I may not know, I send them to Abbie.
“We get a lot of kids who want to come in to our room just to be in quiet. We have some who just need an extra push. We have some who need more help. We’ve done a good job of having an open door and welcoming environment to any student.”
ROE 47 Regional Superintendent of Schools Chris Tennyson is happy the program is working and may add it to other classrooms in the office’s 24 public and 11 private schools in Lee, Ogle, and Whiteside Counties.
“The state has always provided funding for students who needed extra support, it’s called an Alternative Learning Opportunities Program (ALOP),” Tennyson said. “They don’t provide any separate grant funding for these programs, but they do provide funding through the Evidence-Based Funding formula.
“If Regional Offices of Education are helping students that are in an ALOP, then the ROES do get the EBF for the student they’re working with. We have 39 offices throughout the state right now. The program has been going on for some time at different parts of Illinois. In the Chicago area, they’re up to helping 4,000 students.
“We learned about the program and how it was successfully being ran. We were talking to the ROE representatives in La Salle, Marshall, and Putnam Counties and they said they were going to pilot it in Mendota. We waited to see how that went last year, and went it went well, we reached out to Amboy Superintendent Josh Nichols to see if he would be interested.”
Nichols was interested from the first mention.
“It’s a great program and It’s exciting it is here in our schools,” Nichols said. “Anyway we can help our students and give them all the resources we can, I’m in.”