January is National Mentoring Month sponsored by MENTOR: National Mentoring Partnership. As a local affiliate of the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota, BestPrep is recognizing the month and honoring the mentors who support our students. The eMentors program is celebrating its 12th year with a goal to serve more than 4,000 students, 80 schools, and 50 companies.
The role of a caring adult mentor in a student’s life can be very impactful. Mentoring can help students improve in school and help them begin to plan for their future. Through eMentors, mentors help promote the values of motivation and persistence in school and life. A mentor sharing their story from high school to career shows students a potential, successful path they could take and helps them envision their life after high school. Last year, 86% of our eMentor students reported an increased understanding of how success in school relates to their future career choices.
The eMentors program also improves a student’s professional skills. The practice of communicating professionally is not a regular activity for high school students. While technology is ingrained in a teenager’s daily life, formal emailing is not a common mode of communication. eMentors helps teach the professional use of email and helps prepare students for the time when email will become a much more important part of their daily life. Results from last year showed 92% of students improved their writing and communication skills by participating and sending weekly emails.
So far this school year, we have had 25 companies and 41 schools participate in the eMentors program impacting nearly 1,500 of students. New companies to participate, thus far, include North Star Resource Group and Cloquet Memorial Hospital, with plans for at least five more companies to join in the coming months. Additionally, two new schools have engaged in the eMentors program this year – Foley High School and Cloquet High School. We look forward to have many more students, schools and companies participate with eMentors during the winter and spring terms.