Clarissa Kell | Daily Press Andrew Jacques, the assistant principal and athletic director at the Gladstone High School, discusses the idea of a peer to peer mentoring program to students he recognizes as leaders within the school. From left are Ben Flaminio, Aubreanna Servant, Nick Dawson, Doby Gillis, James McKnight and Jacques.

GLADSTONE — The Gladstone High School is making moves to establish a peer-to-peer mentoring elective course credit program for its students by next school year.

Andrew Jacques, the assistant principal and athletic director at the high school, said this began after a group of parents, Superintendent Jay Kulbertis and himself sat down and discussed ways to continuously create the best environment within the school for all students.

“One of the ideas was to do something very similar to what Escanaba is doing. They have a Mo-Buddy program,” Jacques said.

The Escanaba Area Public Schools Mo-Buddy program pairs students who have learning disabilities or someone who may not have friends, with general education students as a way to show support and foster behaviors and relationships that help create a positive environment. The program is achieved through an elective credit course.

“We know it’s been very successful at Escanaba and a number of schools throughout the U.P. and through lower Michigan. We’d like to be able to start something to make sure we’re including and making sure everyone has a voice and everyone has a person to go to and a person to trust,” Jacques said.

The program at Gladstone is still in its early stages. Jacques said they met with Kris Aiken, the teacher consultant at Escanaba who created the Mo-Buddy program, recently and were provided materials and given a tour of the program while they were there.

“I have to thank her and Escanaba so much for allowing us to come in and see their program because we would like to not only have a program like that, but make it successful the way they made it successful,” Jacques said.

The goal for the program at Gladstone is to create a positive environment for the kids involved.

“It is not only going to help the kids but it is going to help our school as a whole because the one thing we put a lot of pride into is our relationships with kids and this is going to help that relationship piece get even better than what we have right now,” Jacques said.

After spring break, Jacques and Jeffyn Herioux, the counselor at the high school, will meet with Meghan McLeod to talk more about the peer to peer mentoring program. McLeod is an educational/autism consultant from Marquette-Alger RESA who has helped implement three different styles of peer to peer mentoring programs in different schools.

“She wants to show us all three different programs — the different styles. What Escanaba does is one style and then there are going to be two other styles that we can take a look at,” Jacques said.

From talking with students in day to day interactions, he explained there is an excitement and interest in the program.

“It’s going to be a fun journey, but we still have a lot to learn,” he said.

The junior high is also looking to implement a peer to peer mentoring program, added Jacques.

When the program is implemented for next school year, Jacques said they’ll hand select a group of junior and senior students who have always been positive leaders within the school to be the mentors.

“Start it off small and then work our way up like Escanaba did,” he said.

The mentors will be paired up with students from any grade that could benefit from the program.

No name for the program has been selected yet.

“I want to be able to put it up to the students,” said Jacques. He explained he wants it to be up to the students so they’re able to really make it their own and take pride in the program.

“We’re just really excited to start a new program. We are always looking for new ways of reaching every child. I can speak for myself and all of our educators here, our staff here is phenomenal — they truly care about each and every individual student. We really want what’s best for them and to prepare them for the real world when they leave us and for them to be successful in the workforce,” he said.