Once a month, upperclassmen mentors meet up with their freshman homerooms to teach them a variety of lessons that they will carry with them both throughout high school and beyond. With the dawn of the new semester, mentors may shift their focus to introducing the freshmen to the various options that are available to them over the course of their remaining years at FHN.

“It’ll be predominantly the same, but we’re trying to focus more on educating this semester instead of bonding,” Mentor Leadership Committee member Andrew Stoker said. “We’re trying to educate them about school and really get them ready for the future and open them up to different possibilities and options for their futures. Like if they don’t want to go to college, they can do Lewis and Clark, or if they do we can give them advice about the ACT or SAT.”

A small core group of senior mentors, called the Mentor Leadership Committee, met yesterday to prepare for the first meeting of the new semester and reflect on the previous month’s activities. After their planning, all of the mentors meet up in the small gym during the next homeroom, and then the following week the mentors go to their respective freshman homerooms. Focuses can be anything from team building games to setting goals for GPA. The freshmen are also informed about upcoming events in the school to encourage involvement.

“Last semester my mentors helped me realize that finals are important but aren’t as stressful as I thought they were,” freshman Hannah Miller said.

Ultimately, mentors help to ease the transition into high school and potentially make connections with the freshmen on both an academic and personal level. Now that the freshmen are mostly accustomed to how high school works, their monthly meetings will be more focused on topics like EOCs and academics.

“The transition to high school is huge, so having connections with upperclassmen, who have learned the ropes of the school,”sponsor Stephanie Johnson said. “They can learn what FHN is really about. They build those relationships and carry that over from ninth grade, which is always really cool to hear about.”