School district’s Reclaim Your Future program helps off-track youths to graduate

Parents can push their children to graduate, but sometimes it takes a stranger to give them the nudge in the right direction.

That is the premise behind the Reclaim Your Future Program, started four years ago by former Clark County School District Superintendent Dwight Jones to help at-risk students.

“We’ve found that our students really benefit from these adults,” said Gena Reagh, assistant principal at Clark High School. “When students know that one more person is watching and rooting for them, it pushes them to try harder.”

The program provides adult mentors from the business community to offer support and guidance to high school seniors who are off track to graduate.

Jerrie Merritt is one of 35 participating mentors with the Bank of Nevada.

She began meeting 17-year-old Clark High School student Serena Winfield for an hour each week in March.

Winfield said she was struggling with passing her writing proficiency exam and with math.

“Right away, I identified the fact that she’s very shy,” Merritt said. “I did a little nudging to get her to open up and pushed her to attend tutoring.”

“I think I just wasn’t really focused,” Winfield said.

But it was more than a lack of concentration missing for Winfield. Her mother died from lung cancer in February 2014, and she has been living with her uncle and grandmother since.

“When she passed, it didn’t hit me until a couple of months later,” Winfield said. “I didn’t think about her being gone. I just thought of her as not being here. After it happened, I got off track with my grades. I was getting A’s, B’s, maybe the occasional C, and then my grades started slipping to D’s and F’s.”

Since pairing up with Merritt, Winfield said her grades went from failing to high B’s. She also passed her writing proficiency test on her final try before graduation.

“She really motivated me to do better,” Winfield said.

She is set to graduate in June and has plans to attend the College of Southern Nevada to become a registered nurse.

Merritt also pushed Winfield to attend her school’s prom.

“I didn’t really want to go, but we got to talking about the importance of prom, and I decided to give it a try,” Winfield said. “It was really memorable, and I had a good time.”

Merritt is also helping Winfield obtain a scholarship for college.

Merritt has been mentoring at-risk Clark County School District students for eight years, but her efforts were not always successful.

“The last two mentees I had before Serena did not graduate because they faced other challenges,” Merritt said. “One student’s parents were undocumented, so she struggled with that. The other was pregnant.”

A past mentee also struggled with balancing work and school while living on her own.

Regardless of their situations, Merritt tries to stress the importance of a high school education and encourages her mentees to never give up on their diploma, even if they have to return to school years later.

“I do this because I love my community, and mentoring young people makes such a big difference in their lives,” Merritt said. “A lot of times, students feel pressured because their parents want them to graduate, but they don’t understand why.”

Earlier this year, the district released its graduation rate for the class of 2014, which remained at roughly 70 percent, slightly lower than the previous year.

The school district is in need of mentors for the next school year.

Volunteers should be at least 25 to participate in the Reclaim Your Future Mentoring Project. However, younger volunteers who possess maturity will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Mentors encourage students to graduate and promote future education and career focus.

They are asked to make a commitment to serve as a mentor for one hour each week for one school year.

“From what I’ve seen this year, my guess is that 70 to 80 percent of students who participate end up graduating,” said Liberty Leavitt, the district’s graduation initiative coordinator. “We are desperate for mentors because they really do make such a difference in the student’s life. We’re not looking for rocket scientists, just dedicated and loving people.”

For more information about the mentor program, call 702-799-6560.

To reach North View reporter Sandy Lopez, email slopez@viewnews.com or call 702-383-4686. Find her on Twitter: @JournalismSandy.