Area 1: Goals:

1. To provide an opportunity for children in need at the Parkway School to receive 1 to 1 mentoring from a committed adult.
   
   
2. To provide an opportunity for children in need who may experience difficulty sustaining positive academic or behavior expectations to receive guidance and support from more neutral, non-school personnel.
   
   
3. To provide for students who may be suffering from a lack of resources in their family due to social or economic pressures. In this way, we can extend an outside resource and through their human interaction and modeling help to level the playing field.
   
   
4. To provide a safe place, a comfortable location, surrounded by a community of committed adults, who understand the goal of the relationship — a place where the mentors can have reasonable access to others more highly trained to work with children's needs, materials, supplies and curriculum connections.
   

Area 2: Activities:

The Parkway School is unique in the sense that although it is not an Abbott District, it does have a significantly diverse population that struggles with social and economic issues. These issues put many of the children at Parkway School at considerable risk, similar to children in the surrounding urban district.

The Parkway School Mentoring collaboration with Merrill Lynch has provided a long term prevention/intervention program that has often extended, not only past the Parkway years (grades K-5) into the middle school years (grades 6-8), but has extended outside the school arena into the community and personal lives of the students.

This in-school collaboration provides a weekly connection for one to one attention to a student from a caring, committed adult. This weekly visit or connection provides opportunity for 1 to 1 academic tutoring, exploration of literature, physical exercise and/or coaching, letter writing, card making, crafts, formal and informal social skills training and modeling, homework review, sorting and collecting activities and many other Core Curriculum Content connections, particularly the Workplace Readiness Skills.

Over the years Merrill Lynch has been the financial and human resource for grade level trips to Washington DC covering curriculum areas in Social Studies and Nutrition as well as in-house career programs such as Take Your Child to Work Day and the Stock Market Game.

Since the inception of the program, Merrill Lynch has recruited a completely volunteer squad of 25-50 mentors to provide the weekly 1 to 1 connection to 25-50 students at Parkway School.

Membership in the program requires a minimum of a one year commitment from the Merrill Lynch employee. These employees are released from work one day a week, for one hour to be with their mentee. Although it is the Mentoring Program policy that the relationships be sustained for at least 1 year, we find that often they are continued from year to year. Some relationships have started in kindergarten and have continued well into middle school.

Area 3: Outside Resources:

There are no other outside resources available to the Merrill Lynch/Parkway School partnership at this time. All funding for trips has come directly from Merrill Lynch and their Community Relations/Outreach Department. Merrill Lynch has provided a Mentoring Program Facilitator who recruits and oversees the staffing of mentors and acts as a liaison between Merrill Lynch and the Parkway School Counselor, who coordinates on the school end. Mentors often use their own money to purchase snacks and small gifts for their individual mentee.

Area 4: Evaluation:

The full impact of this partnership cannot be definitively measured on the New Jersey ASK or the State Terra Nova Standardized Test Scores. The full impact of this partnership can be measured only by the daily interaction, powerful connection and bond that is established between a needy child and a caring adult who reaches out to say "I am here for you." "You matter." "You mean something to me." "I want to see you." "I want to know about your life and what is going on with you." These are validations that many of us take for granted, but are void or at best, rare, in the life of a needy child.

A child may be referred to the mentoring program in different ways. Sometimes a single parent is reaching out, sometimes a teacher will say, "There is no one at home to help this child." Often a child cries out for support everyday through his/her acting out behavior. Sometimes a child has been taken from the only parents they have ever known and are in foster placement, trying to adjust.

Whatever the case may be, time and time again, having a mentor, one hour, once a week has been a stabilizing factor here at school. All of a sudden this child wants to come to school. They feel a special connection. They feel validated; they know something good is going on. They look forward to something now. They reviewed spelling words with their mentor and got an "A" on the test. "Things are looking up." "I can do it." "I am OK." "I do matter."

There is plenty of research to support a strong correlation between positive self-concept and higher test scores. There is a great deal of research that demonstrates that the child who believes in him/herself achieves more. What might be even more impressive than the research are the anecdotal records of adults who have survived a very difficult childhood. Many will acknowledge a "mentor" as having made the biggest difference in their lives. Long before any research was available, as "big humans" we seemed to just know on a very deep level that "little humans" really need that extra "human connection."

Area 5: Stability:

Merrill Lynch/Parkway School Mentoring Program has been in partnership for over twelve years, starting in 1994. The program has grown, matured, expanded and survived even the latest of economic hard times. The commitment of a few has provided a contagious effort that continues to provide outreach and service to children in need, thus the program lives on… touching the lives of our little ones each day.

Each year in September, the Parkway School sponsors a Mentoring Orientation Breakfast funded by the school PTA. In this way the mentors are able to meet each other, get to know the Parkway staff and become familiar with the mentoring program and its guidelines. In June each year, also funded by the Parkway PTA, there is a Mentoring Brunch to celebrate and honor each mentor for their participation. At this time, we ask all the parents of the children involved to attend and spend some time getting to know their child's mentor. This also provides an opportunity for the children to thank their mentor for the year long support.

Area 6: Endorsements:

I have been at Parkway School since before the inception of the Merrill Lynch/Parkway School Partnership. I believe that this partnership has played a very significant role in the lives of many of [the] children at Parkway. There are children here that have very difficult lives and are struggling to maintain themselves academically and socially. The Merrill Lynch Mentors have joined with us to provide an opportunity for these children, which would ordinarily not be part of their school experience. I have watched these children over the years show tremendous improvement when given the chance to interact 1 to 1 with a mentor. It helps the children feel special and improves their sense of belonging here at school. I can not say enough about the benefits of the Merrill Lynch/Parkway School Partnership in Mentoring.

Mr. Dennis Williams, Vice Principal, Parkway Elementary School

Merrill Lynch has partnered with Parkway Elementary School in Ewing for over a dozen years to provide mentors for students throughout the school year. Merrill Lynch employees are paired with students and they meet once a week for the majority of the current school year. This has been a wonderful partnership that has positively impacted the students of Parkway and the employees of Merrill Lynch as well. We are quite proud of this partnership, which has become a tradition here at Merrill.

Helene M. Garcia, Director - Community & Strategic Initiatives,
Merrill Lynch Corporation

I highly recommend our continued partnership between Parkway Elementary School, Ewing Township, NJ, and the Merrill Lynch Corporation.

As has been stated in the past, the Ewing Public Schools continue to be a very culturally and economically diverse district. It also continues to provide experiences and resources for a wide range of academic, social and emotional needs possessed by our students. Not withstanding some years when budgets are defeated, The Ewing Public Schools need to be able to stretch its resources in order to meet the needs, interests and abilities of all of its students. In recent years we have developed several goals that help us meet this mission. One is to provide a learning environment which continues to lessen the achievement gap; another is sustaining a safe and productive learning environment for all learners; and lastly, providing appropriate learning models and mentors for all of our students.

While we are not considered to be an Abbott District, we are encouraged by our results and by any added support that can be provided with achieving the above goals. The Merrill Lynch Corporation has proven to be a strong supporter of the above goals by helping to provide not only positive role models for all of our learners, but a safe relationship in which students can realize their fullest potential. Again, I appreciate, value, and highly recommend the partnership program between Parkway Elementary School and the Merrill Lynch Corporation.

Raymond Broach, District Superintendent