The Cupertino Courier

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'Role Models' point the way to successful life, job

By ANNE WARD ERNST

Volunteers from the Role Model Program who visit Robby Romines' eighth-grade leadership class do not need to encourage the students to go to college. Most of the students already assume they will go.

Romines teaches at Miller Middle School--part of the Cupertino Union School District, which has a reputation for schools with high API scores and high-achieving students.

Romines' students don't fit the profile served by the Role Model Program, a local classroom-based volunteer mentoring program, when it was founded in 1989. The nonprofit is mostly intended for the at-risk, or under-served, population. It finds, selects and trains volunteers from the community who have gone through a job search process to talk to fourth- through eighth-graders. Volunteers commit to one-hour sessions, where they go into the classroom once a week for six to eight weeks. They focus on encouraging students to finish high school and continue on to college.

The at-risk population has limited information coming to them about college, said Marybeth Affleck-Nacey, executive director of the Role Model Program.

Going to college for some of these students is not a consideration, either, because nobody in their family has ever gone, they come from poor families or they are isolated by language barriers.

That's not the case in Romines class. Most of her students come from higher-income, well-educated families. Parents and educators in this community don't talk to children about whether they will go to college; they talk to their children about which college, how to get in, and whether to choose law, medicine or technology for their major.

Romines has used the program for a half-dozen or so years, she said. When she learned about it, she knew she wanted it but wasn't sure how it could fit her students.

The program is designed to have some flexibility, so they made it work.

"Our volunteers appreciate that one size does not fit all," said Cupertino's Dolly Sandoval.

Sandoval is steeped in the program's concept and principles. She is a role model herself, a seventh-grade math teacher at Los Gatos High School, and is on the board of directors for the Role Model Program. She is also a Cupertino city councilwoman.

The role models who visit Romines' classroom give their sessions a tailored focus.

"Instead of going in and saying it's really important to go to college--my kids know they will--[the role models] teach them that they need to start giving back to the community," Romines said.

San Jose judge Patricia Trumble, a role model in Romines' class, talked to students about goal-setting and community service. She found a way to get students to speak, interact and step out of their comfort zones to discuss individual talents, skills and goals.

Other role models, such as Cupertino resident Venky Venkataraman, share with students personal life experiences in which they find themselves in awkward or uneasy situations. Venkataraman, who works for Century 21 in Sunnyvale, is a role model in Carla Dunavan's seventh-grade class at San Jose's Union Middle School. He told students about a time when regional unfamiliarity and language became a barrier for him in his native India, and explained how he overcame his obstacles.

Venkataraman has students write letters to colleges to ask for information about programs in which they are interested--a standard piece of the Role Model Program.

Romines' students write those letters, too, but she also has them write letters to her listing their goals. She keeps the letters, then mails them back to the students when they graduate from high school.

Looking back, some goals they set for themselves seem unrealistic once they mature, she said.

"They all want 1600 on their SAT's. Eventually they get back to [saying] 'Oh, [I'm] not going to do that, so [I'll] do the best I can,'" Romines said.

Unrealized goals sometimes reveal that the goal wasn't really of interest in the first place, or tastes, preferences and priorities changed.

"Maybe they just need to know what they thought about and how they saw themselves. When they're 12 and 13, they are so different," she said.

On a visit to the Sunnyvale Library, Sandoval noticed a girl doing an assignment in the program's "Dare to Dream" notebook. Excited to see someone using it, she approached the girl and her mother, explained her involvement in the program and asked for feedback.

The mother told Sandoval that before the Role Model Program her daughter had never thought about going to college.

Sandoval found that the program can change not only students' outlook, but also the parents.

Both mother and daughter assumed the girl would follow her parents' path to blue collar work. Now the girl wants to be a veterinarian. The two were at the library researching schools for the girl to contact for more information.

"It changed this woman's view about what her daughter was going to do," Sandoval said.

For more information about the Role Model Program, visit www.therolemodelprogram.org or call 408.246.0433.