The Golden Eagle Education Foundation mentoring program welcomes local residents with a desire to help students to join their ranks. The award-winning program formally began in 1996 and had 98 mentors at the start of the 2019-20 school year, but has shrunk since COVID-19 and now has 28 active members.

Mentors typically work with one student a year, and for an hour once a week. The mentors go through background checks and training before working with kids in Fountain Hills Unified School District schools. Mentors offer extra assistance with whatever the student needs, whether it be grasping a subject matter or doing homework.

There are all sorts of issues at home that can make it difficult for students to study or focus in the classroom. Mentors don’t pry, but if a student decides to open up to them, they can offer emotional support as well.

“The most important part of mentoring is just giving these kids a chance,” Carol Kubota said. “Most the kids that we get are recommended because they do have some kind of problem…they don’t tell us that. They just say this person needs a mentor.”

Kubota started mentoring in 2017 and only returned to mentoring this past fall. The program took a break at the height of the pandemic because of higher restrictions on close contact inside the school. Many mentors have not returned yet, but Kubota was asked to come back specifically for her expertise.

Kubota grew up in Glendale and her first job out of high school was as an English teacher in Mexico City. She was only 19 when she started and ended up being an English Second Language (ESL) teacher for 42 years.

Kubota has been helping a student who came to Fountain Hills from out of the country and she’s also helping another student from the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation this year. The needs vary by student, but Kubota gives them each her full attention and engages with them in fun ways, like word-based board games.

“My main thing is to try to figure out what it is they need help with,” Kubota said. “[One student] brought in all of her homework, and she said all I want to do now is my homework. I said ‘okay,’ so she did all of her homework, completed it and then we played scrabble.”

Kubota is a member of Kiwanis and became a mentor after Marcia Hoenle gave a speech on the mentor program at a meeting. Mentors join for several reasons, and Paul Perreault said he became a mentor to give back to the school that helped his kids so much.

Perreault has lived in Fountain Hills for 31 years and his youngest child graduated with honors from Arizona State University in 2021. Years ago, Perrault worried his youngest had a learning disability, but the staff at McDowell Mountain Elementary School dedicated extra time and energy to evaluate and alleviate Perreault’s concerns.

Perreault is in his 10th year mentoring and was even named mentor of the year by the Rotary Club for the 2018-19 school year. He helps at McDowell Mountain and has seen multiple children catch up with their classmates and have a better understanding of their curriculum.

Perreault said he gives a written report to teachers after each mentor session. He’ll tell them what he did with a student that day, and how things have been progressing with each session.

Michelle McElroy recommended Perreault for the Mentor of the Year award by a teacher because of a “whatever you need” attitude that led him to mentor three students in 2018. He still has the same dedication to helping students, and the students need more help than ever since COVID.

“For the last four years, it’s been more of a bonding of trust between a child and a mentor,” Perreault said. “These kids have been put through a lot of crap in the last couple of years, which is very unusual…It’s almost like a big brother, big sister situation, for that child to know that somebody else cares.”

The mentor program always needs more volunteers. The majority of mentors help out at the elementary school, but they can help students in any grade. Fountain Hills Middle School currently has one student on a waiting list because they have 12 mentors and 13 students according to the site council meeting minutes from Jan. 25.

When mentors sign up, they are asked what kind of schedule they have, and what subjects they can help students with. Then they go through background checks and training, and parents or legal guardians also have to give permission before the mentors start working with their kid.

The program started this year with less than 20 mentors, and Sandy Davis is training four more members this month according to program coordinator Isa Glez. You can find forms and more information about becoming a mentor by visiting fhgeef.org/mentoring or emailing mentoring@fhgeed.org.