by Emily Lara Vargas
The Adopt-a-Senior was created to help seniors in need of encouragement to graduate. Esther Ceus, Park View graduation coach, created this program to help specific seniors who she thought would benefit from having a special, one-on-one connection with an adult in the building.
“I picked the seniors who could use the benefit from using a mentor or a buddy to keep them on track,” said Ceus. Adopt-a-Senior has about 50 seniors participating in the program.
“The end goal is to get all of our seniors to graduation on time,” said Ceus. The teachers who are apart of this program all volunteered and picked their senior.
ELL teacher Norhan Fillo adopted Senior Jaden Thomas as her mentee because she thought he would benefit from the program, and she would love to help him get to graduation. “The thought that Jaden would benefit from a mentor made me think that I would like to do it,” said Fillo.
Thomas thinks it is a good way to get seniors on track to make sure they stay on top of doing their school work and attendance to school. “ I’ve been slacking on my work horribly,” said Thomas, who thinks having someone push, and motivate him will be beneficial.
Senior Bryan Escobar is also looking forward to this program because he believes it will make him a better student. Escobar says, “It’s a good program because it helps seniors go from being at risk of not graduating to graduating.”
“I was a kid in high school who needed support and it’s good that i could give back and help out seniors Dionisio “Dio” Aviles and Tony Guardado.” said Andrew Johnson who is also excited for this program.
