‘By kids, for kids’

Chico High School senior Noé Contreras still recalls, with the slightest trace of embarrassment, the day during his sophomore year when he was caught with a small bottle of tequila on campus. He was suspended for one week, but the real punishment was his mother’s disappointment in him.

“My mom was crying, and it made me sad to see her like that,” said Noé, the son of a single parent who he says works 10 hours a day at a local motel in the hope that he’ll have more opportunity than she did. “I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. I knew I had to change something.”

After that, Noé's grades began to climb from D’s to B’s and occasionally A’s. He distanced himself from the youth gang that had attracted his attention in eighth grade. He began to view the special program he was part of at Chico High known as SOUL—Students of Unlimited Leadership—as something that could give him a second chance.

Early Friday (Sept. 29), at the Boys and Girls Club, Noé found himself in a position to help others. He watched 130 excited elementary- and middle-schoolers stream into Nettleton Gym for a mentoring conference that had been organized by his SOUL leadership class. Noé, 16, had a single goal in mind for the Chico Unified School District’s first conference run by kids who themselves had been labeled “at risk” for the benefit of younger children who are struggling in some way.

“I want to make them want to come back to us,” Noé said. “I’m going to be real with them. I wish I could have had an opportunity like this in eighth grade.”

Many of the 30 Chico High students who ran the “SOUL on Wall Street” conference echoed that sentiment, saying they planned to establish ongoing relationships with the fifth-, sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders and help them avoid mistakes they had made.

Chico High’s SOUL program was organized six years ago to meet the needs of students floundering academically or struggling with family or other personal problems. The SOUL leadership class was offered for the first time this fall to applicants who had renounced any bad habits and shown academic progress.

The conference had for six years been a vague notion in the mind of lead SOUL teacher David McKay. The leadership class latched on to the idea six weeks ago. Now, like Noé, teachers and administrators hope it will usher in a new era of mentoring in the district that could help stem gang violence, drug and alcohol use and truancy.

“I hope this will kick off a movement in the district using older kids who are trained to work with younger kids,” said an excited McKay on the evening before the conference.

Teachers like McKay believe the district waits too long to tackle some behavior problems—like gang affiliations that are now forming as early as elementary school—with ongoing programs. “This kind of program can help turn the tide,” McKay said. “Gangs don’t go away because the police come in and sweep them out. They go when a community stands up and says, ‘You guys go.’ “

In workshops with their SOUL mentors, kids discussed issues related to gangs, family, goal-setting and even, in one case, peers who were getting “high” by sniffing permanent markers. The SOUL mentors listened and warned them of the dangers of gangs and getting high.

“When you join a gang, you put your whole family in danger,” said SOUL mentor Fabiola Gonzalez, garbed in the black-and-white T-shirt the mentors wore Friday that shows two hands in a shake. “My brother got locked up…. My mom would wake up at night crying, worrying…. People make bad decisions just to fit in. If you’re in a gang or even just hanging out with them, you’re judged as one of them. Gangs are really big everywhere, and people are getting killed.”

At the same workshop, SOUL student Yasmin Piceno told a dozen children seated on the lawn that they should keep the lines of communication with their parents open. “You’re afraid to talk to your parents because they’ll get mad, but when they hear about it from someone else, it’s worse,” she said. “It’s better when you just tell them. The truth always comes out.”

Later, the student mentors asked the kids if they knew what they wanted to do with their lives. One wanted to be a lawyer, another a professional basketball player. One wanted to be a boxer, another a soccer player. Yasmin warned them that “nothing comes easy,” that they’d have to make good choices and stay focused on school.

At the end of a workshop, 14-year-old Devante Hester from Marsh Junior High School told a reporter she had learned some things. “I’ve learned not to do drugs,” Devante said, and, “you just have to keep your head up.”

Chico Junior High vice principal Pedro Caldera, who launched a SOUL program at his school this fall, showed up briefly for what he said was a landmark event. “This is the first time we’ve held a conference by kids for kids,” he said. “Usually, these are the kids who don’t have a voice in their school system, kids who are disenfranchised in our community.”

Parkview Elementary teacher Don Collins said he selected a “mix” of students for the conference, and “not so much troubled kids.” One girl, he said, was invited because she’s a “quiet leader"; two others are kids he worries about for different reasons.

During the past six years, McKay said he’s worked with a range of kids in the SOUL program. Some students needed support because of an absent father; others, he said, deal with “gangs, depression, family members in jail and even homelessness.”

The program offers classes that are smaller than typical Chico High classes as well as closer student-teacher relationships. Many SOUL students said they view McKay or other teachers as second parents. In English classes, students read literature often centered on people who have struggled against odds.

McKay said he hopes the mentoring conference will be held each semester, and plans are underway for the SOUL students to meet in a month with the younger kids at the Boys & Girls Club. “It was unbelievable,” he said after the conference. “They surpassed my expectations.