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JANET ZINKThe mayor says the 90 minutes a week will help students at West Tampa Elementary with reading.
TAMPA - After an angelic rendition of My Country 'Tis of Thee by a chorus of West Tampa Elementary School students, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio announced the creation of a city mentoring program Tuesday.
City employees will be permitted to take 90 minutes a week of paid time off from work to serve as mentors for students at West Tampa Elementary. The time includes one-hour, one-on-one with students and 30 minutes for travel. Once the program gets off the ground, 10 more schools may eventually be involved.
"We need to devote the resources of city of Tampa government to education," Iorio said at a news conference.
The mentoring program became a priority for her after she learned that so many children can't read at grade level, she said.
Thirty-seven percent of the nation's fourth-graders read below grade-level, according to the U.S. Department of Education. At West Tampa Elementary, 62 percent of the entire student body reads below grade level, the Florida Department of Education stated.
"As a mayor, I talk a lot about economic development. There is no economic development for a young person who can't read," she said. "Some people need a little bit of help. That's where mentoring comes in."
The Hillsborough County school system, she said, does a great job. She graduated from Hillsborough County schools, and both her children attend public schools.
"But it's wrong to always turn to the school system and say, fix this, fix that," she said. "Educating the young people in our community is everybody's business and everybody's responsibility."
West Tampa Elementary was chosen as the program's pilot site because it's one of the poorest schools in the city. More than 90 percent of the school's 565 students qualify for free or reduced price lunches, and many are from foreign countries.
"With English a second language for so many of our students, reading will be a priority," said West Tampa's principal Linda Geller. "There's not one child here that can't use the extra help, the extra push."
In addition to helping students with reading, writing and other schoolwork, mentors will simply spend quality time with them.
"Research has shown, and we know, that when a caring adult is involved in a young person's life, that person does better," said Hillsborough County schools superintendent Earl Lennard.
Mentoring not only helps students do better in school, but also improves their behavior and their chances for succeeding after school.
Big Brothers Big Sisters will recruit, train, screen and monitor the mentors.
Iorio has met with city department supervisors to ask them to see how many employees they can spare. The city has 4,400 full-time employees who could potentially participate in the program, but people such as firefighters and police officers may not be able to take time away from their regular duties. The volunteer efforts, she said, can't interfere with a city department's regular work load.
Several companies in Tampa have similar types of programs. Eighty-five employees from JP Morgan Chase take time off work to volunteer at Clair Mel Elementary School, said Steven Koch, chief executive officer of Big Brothers Big Sisters.
In 2002, Gov. Jeb Bush created the Municipal Mentoring Initiative with the Florida League of Cities to encourage cities to let employees volunteer at schools during business hours. Bush asked St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker to chair the program because he had launched a mentoring initiative in 2001. About 130 St. Petersburg workers spend one hour a week mentoring students.