Older students helping those entering high school fit in easier

The Link Crew lets older students mentor new students, and uses activities such as bowling to help.

Mountain Home Junior High students currently in grades eight and nine will find their transition to high school next year comfortable and familiar with the help of the Link Crew program in place at Mountain Home High School.

Based on a concept of student mentoring, high school juniors and seniors will commit to serve as Link Leaders for a full school year, helping the new freshmen and sophomores adjust to the new attitudes and requirements needed to be successful in high school.

Link Leaders work in teams of two upperclassmen who are assigned to work with a small group of eight to twelve students throughout the school year. In addition to initial adjustments to high school, they will continue to provide follow-up involvement to help eighth- and ninth-grade students avoid problems with discipline, absences, class attendance and homework.

As part of the commitment they make, Link Leaders must agree to commit to being a positive role model for the students they mentor.

Wagoner said the leaders, "love working with the junior high kids. They were very disappointed when the ice cream social we had planned recently for the eighth graders had to be canceled."

The student leaders encompass a broad range of interests and personalities and grade point averages.

Mountain Home High School is the first school in Idaho to have the Link Crew program. It was introduced about four years ago by Janet Wagoner, a teacher then new to Idaho, who had found the program to be successful in the school where she taught in California. Wagoner is currently the program coordinator.

The program is in its third year and continues to be popular with students, as evidenced by its growth each year. There were 30 Link Leaders the first year, and it has grown to over 80 applications for the coming school year.

"We hope to have at least 90 volunteers for the coming year," Wagoner said. She said the program will need that many Link Leaders to help the 275 incoming freshmen and 307 sophomores expected to transfer from Mountain Home Junior High next fall.

The current high school sophomores and juniors will begin initial training for the Link Crew program in April 27, 29, 30 and May 5 and 7. A more in depth training program will be held in August, followed by an orientation program for incoming freshmen and sophomores.