Students training to help students adjust to school life

Pictured are H.M. King High students Max Laguna and Brittany Pena, who are spearheading a new program called Student 2 Student, which would help new students better adjust to the school surroundings and environment through the Military Child Education Coalition program. Two students from H.M. King High School are in the process of implementing a new program, called Student 2 Student, on campus to assist incoming or outgoing military children and/or new students adjust to their surroundings.

H.M. King Freshmen Max Laguna and Brittany Pena along with KISD Director of Accelerated Programs Martha Ramirez and NAS Liaison Jeanie Alexander attended a workshop in San Antonio sponsored by the Military Child Education Coalition (MCEC) January 21-24 in order to receive information and training about the organization.

Student 2 Student begins when a team from a school campus is trained to return to their home campus to provide leadership for training other students on methods to support students who are transitioning to or from their school.

The team is composed of advisors and students and the focus is student-centered, and student-led, with close supervision.

The development of student trainers who can return to their home campus to train other peers is critical to the success and credibility of the program.

Through the program for the incoming students, the team provides a forum for students to quickly feel welcomed, comfortable, included and accepted into their new school community. For the outgoing student, the team assists in helping outbound students better prepare for transitioning to another school.

“MCEC is responsible for military liaisons such as Mrs. Alexander who assists military children in KISD, it was through Mrs. Alexander that I learned about this program and we decided we would try it out,” Ramirez said.

“Right now our two students, Max and Brittany, are in the process out acquiring teacher recommendations for a group of about 20 students to assist them with the program,” Ramirez said. “We were given a timeline by MCEC and are right on track with the development of the organization.”

Once the student volunteers have been assembled, they will go around town introducing themselves to the community and make the citizens aware of this new program, Ramirez said.

NAS Kingsville Youth Center Director Brent Edwards, SFC Frank Guerra and Gretchen Williams from H.M. King High School will be the supervisors at the campus.

NAS Kingsville will also help donate school supplies to the students in the program as a way of helping out.

“We are currently looking for funding for t-shirts and possibly a laptop to assist with activities so hopefully we can get those things for the students soon,” Ramirez said.

This program is a first of its kind in KISD and Ramirez said she is hoping it will bring in new families and students to the community.

“We are going to put a logo for this program on our website and are hoping that people who are looking to move here will see that we have this program in place for their children and can feel at ease that there will be students looking out for their children,” Ramirez said.

“I think this program will be really successful and we are excited to see how it works out.”