A Forum for Community Issues : Conversation WITH ALMA NORIEGA AND BARBARA WILSON : Having a Mentor Who Cares ‘Can Make You Do Better’

The Los Angeles Unified School District is the nation’s second-largest. But close to one-third of its nearly 700,000 students drop out before receiving their high-school diplomas. In an effort to reverse that trend, school officials have developed the Each One-Reach One mentor program, which matches interested adults with high-school students to let them see firsthand why staying in class can positively affect their futur e .

ALMA NORIEGA, a 17-year-old senior at Taft High School in Woodland Hills , and her mentor BARBARA WILSON, a nursing student at Pierce College and a hospital pharmacist, discussed their year-long relationship in the mentor program with Times staff writer KEVIN BAXTER .

Question: What drew you into the mentor program in the first place?

Wilson: I wanted to make a difference. You always hear people talking about young people, kids in high school, and they say all they do is get involved in crime, they don’t care about school. Yet those same people don’t want to devote any of their time to try to change that or try to make something better for somebody. So I thought this would be a good way for me to get involved. I wouldn’t have minded when I was in high school if I had somebody kind of push me a little in the right direction. You know your parents do so much, but when you get some outside influence I think it makes it even better.

Noriega: When I first joined, it really wasn’t explained very well to me. I was just asked if I wanted to be in a program that was going to help me. I thought, “Well, yeah. I’m not going to lose anything.” But most of the kids that joined with me, they’re not in the program anymore. They didn’t get along with their mentor or whatever. For me, well, I thought it was going to help me and it did. That’s why I’m still in it.

Q: What’s your relationship like?

Noriega: She talks to me like a friend and I see her as a friend. I can talk to her about anything, not just homework. She tells me her problems with her job, financial problems. And I try to help her with them. When we first started, she didn’t get on my behind to do this, do that. She wasn’t bossy. She didn’t even bring up grades. When she comes, she talks to me about how I’ve been. Then we talk about grades.

Wilson: It’s not just a formal relationship that we have, it’s a friendship. You’re more able to stick with somebody who’s a friend, take them a little more seriously. I think that’s why it works. It was real awkward when we first met. Alma didn’t look at me that much. We just needed to get to know each other. I didn’t want to be over-eager and smother her. We talked about things we had in common. Like I’m a student and she’s a student. I’m Asian American. We talk about the racism that I’ve experienced and things that she’s experienced. There’s a lot of things that we can relate to.

Q: What kind of experiences do you share with Alma?

Wilson: I tell her what it’s like to be in school and working part-time, trying to make rent, trying to pay for books. So she knows what’s ahead. Right after I got involved in the program, I was laid off from my job. That was a difficult time for me but it was a real-life experience for Alma to get a little exposure to what it’s like when you are laid off, how you feel.

Q: How have your views of the program changed over the past year?

Wilson: I was going to turn Alma into an honor student. And I used to get frustrated. Then I got to know Alma. I drove down to South-Central Los Angeles and went to her house and realized how her day worked, how early she had to get up just to be here. It made me realize it wasn’t going to be just an academic-type situation. I was going to try to get to know her and understand her because I had respect for her. Now I’m glad she does any homework! She spends a lot of time helping her sister take care of her baby. And when you hear Alma talk about how she keeps the kids in line when her mom is not around, you understand that’s a lot of responsibility.

Noriega: I’m glad I got involved. But it would be better for people to be a mentor when the kids are little. Everybody has their own mind in high school. In junior high and elementary school, you can still change them because they’re still kids and what they look at is their big brothers and stuff. I looked up to my big sister.

Q: Hasn’t the program made you a better student? How?

Noriega: My grades have gone up. I come to school more often. Now I want to graduate. I wasn’t going to graduate because I didn’t have enough credits but now I’m making up classes so I can go to college. Barbara told me it was important. And then I realized it was. I want to be a nurse too. I thought it was going to be real easy for me. But the way she talks about it, it seems like it’s going to be hard. So I have to do better, work hard.

Q: Can you measure what effect the mentor program has had on Alma?

Wilson: I know Alma’s grades have gone up. I’m not going to take credit for that, but I would talk to her about her grades, bring it more into the conversation. And then she would talk more about it. That’s how it started. Any time somebody helps you--and it’s not for money but because they want to--having somebody care about you can make you do better.

Q: What qualifications should a good mentor have?

Wilson: You just need to be a caring human being. If you can’t relate on one level, there are always other ways you can help somebody. You don’t have to be a minority to relate to other minorities. It’s just to have somebody to support you and remind you of all the good things that can happen and all the great things that are in store for you.

Q: If the reward for the students is the help and motivation they need to finish school, what’s the reward for the mentor?

Wilson: I get to see a different perspective on everything. She tells me how she feels. We talk about politics. I’ve gone to her house and met her family. It’s an enriching experience. You can’t go into this program thinking that they’re just kids because they’re not. They’re already on an adult level as far as practical, common sense-type things.

To learn more about the LAUSD’s Each One-Reach One program or how to become a mentor, call Kathleen Kelly at (213) 625-6900.