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Central Middle School’s Power Resilience mentoring program highlighted; students credited behavior and grades improvements
Summary
Dr. Don Parker and volunteers described a 10-week mentoring program at Central Middle School during the April 16 board meeting and presented student testimonials and a short video celebrating participation and reported improvements in behavior and grades.
Dr. Don Parker told the Evergreen Park Elementary School District 124 Board of Education on April 16 that he ran the 10-week Power Resilience program at Central Middle School and praised students’ progress in behavior and academic commitment.
Parker, a former principal and professional development provider, said the program emphasized perseverance, ownership, wisdom, excellence and resilience — summarized with the acronym POWER — and that he observed measurable improvement among participants across the 10-week run. “I saw the change from media 1 to media 10,” Parker said, describing improvement across sessions.
The meeting included a short video of student testimonials in which several participants spoke about reduced disciplinary write-ups, improved grades and better anger management. One student in the video said, “I stopped getting in trouble a lot, and I stopped cursing. I wanted to, like, control my emotions and everything.” Another said the program helped reduce write-ups and improved classroom behavior.
Parker acknowledged volunteer mentor Ken Morrow Jones for attending sessions and sharing personal stories with the students. Jones, speaking briefly from the dais, urged students to follow the program’s guidance and described how a caring teacher changed his life: “Follow whatever this man is saying…It works.”
Parker offered to expand the program to include young women; he said curriculum and mentors are available for girls as well as boys. He also gifted copies of two books to district leadership and presented a program T-shirt to staff.
The presentation concluded with certificates and an invitation for continued partnership; the board did not vote on the presentation itself but accepted the report and thanked participants.
