The Sunnyvale Sun

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Road to success is being paved--one child at a time

By ANNE WARD ERNST

In Bev Winegar's Sunnyvale Middle School classroom, the diversity of students is like a patchwork quilt. So when, Maurissa Koide, a multi-racial volunteer from the Role Model Program showed up, she was like the top stitching that ran through the quilt.

It didn't hurt that she was pretty, and she wore a tiara. She was Miss San Jose 2003.

"The girls drooled over her crown, and the boys drooled over her," Winegar said.

Winegar was struck by Koide and her appeal to the students. But it was more than her accoutrements that appealed to Winegar and her students. When Koide first introduced herself to Winegar's eighth-graders she asked them to guess her ethnicity.

"She is half Japanese and half Hispanic. They couldn't guess," Winegar said.

Koide is just one of many volunteers with the Role Model Program, a local classroom-based volunteer mentoring program founded in 1989. The nonprofit is mostly intended for the at-risk, or underserved, population. The program staff members find, select and train 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.

Koide was a middle school teacher herself with a degree from Columbia University before she went on to pursue a master's degree in public health at San Francisco State University.

She drove home the most vital message of the Role Model Program: Finish high school and go on to college.

Some of Winegar's students don't have to think about whether they will do that--they know they will. So, the message in Sunnyvale needed customizing, just as it did in Robby Romines' class at Miller Middle School in Cupertino. Romines uses the program to teach students about setting daily short- and long-term goals and then prioritizing them. She and the role model volunteers who visit her classroom also stress community service.

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.

"Sometimes they don't see college in their future," Winegar said.

That's true for some of her students, but not all. Some of her students come from higher-income, well-educated families whose parents talk to their children about where they will go to college, not if they will go.

Role models who visit Winegar's classroom need to cover it all, and they need to make it acceptable to choose a career that may not require going to a university.

Post-secondary schooling can include apprenticeships or trade schools, and Affleck-Nacey said students are encouraged to reach goals, but also follow dreams, because not all careers require a four-year degree.

Winegar has used the program for about four years, and Romines, five or six years. Both find it flexible enough to fit their unique needs.

"I think 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.

Role models who visit these teachers' classrooms give a tailored focus.

"Instead of going in and saying it's really important to go to college; my kids know they will. They (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 about goal-setting and community service.

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.

Koide told Winegar's students that there were many scholarships available to Hispanics. She applied for as many as she could in order to help her with her college finances.

However they can get the message across, Winegar just enjoys it when a role model really connects with her students.

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.

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