As postsecondary enrollment among high school graduates in Maine continues to decrease, one organization is working to reverse that trend with a mentorship model that supports students from middle school through high school.

What began as a pilot program more than six years ago, turned into a model that local organizations in communities can use in a partnership with school districts, according to Rural Youth Institute Board Chairman Don Carpenter.

The Aspirations Incubator is the model used in a six-year pilot program that was started in 2017 in eight schools, with five of those schools continuing the program for the entire six years. It is essentially a mentoring program that follows a group of students from seventh grade all the way through high school graduation.

Those schools that participated in the pilot program include Maine School Administrative District 44 based in Bethel, Regional School Unit 1 based in Bath, Regional School Unit 3 based in Unity, the Cherryfield School Department and Regional School Unit 34 based in Old Town.

The program was funded by the Rural Futures Fund, which was created and funded from Emanuel and Pauline Lerner’s estate, philanthropists with a business based out of the Washington, D.C., area, Carpenter said. The Rural Futures Fund will dissolve as those funds are expected to be spent by 2025.

New nonprofit Rural Youth Institute will take over and build upon the success of the Aspirations Incubator model to continue to promote and help young people seek postsecondary education after graduation.

The Rural Youth Institute expects to get any leftover funding from the Rural Futures Fund, and it has also secured a three-year grant from the Peter Alfond Foundation, Carpenter said.

When students transition from middle school to high school, usually in eighth or ninth grade, they tend to lose interest in education as they leave behind teachers who have supported them since elementary school, according to Carpenter.

The Aspirations Incubator model helps bridge the gap over that transition period by providing a mentor who works with the students from seventh grade to graduation.

The rate of students enrolling in postsecondary education schools or programs has decreased steadily since 2018.

With 66.6% of students statewide enrolling in such programs after graduation in 2018, that figure decreased to 53.5% in 2022, according to data on the Maine Department of Education website.

Of the students in the entire pilot program who graduated high school in 2023, Carpenter said 84% went on to enroll in a postsecondary education program.

The group of students in the pilot program was diverse, with 63% across the whole program identified in the fifth year of the program as needing moderate to significant support based on the Holistic Student Assessment, according to the Aspirations Incubator five-year report. That assessment is done on students every year.

The host organization typically provides a couple of mentors to work with students on things such as tutoring, educational plans, extracurricular activities and skill-building exercises, and they can also act as a liaison between families and the school, he said.

There are several different cohorts in schools based on grade level, starting with seventh grade, that are split among the mentors.

“They (mentors) provide this community support system that kind of provides a 360-degree, finger on the pulse of everything that’s going on in that young person’s life over the course of six years,” he said.

The University of Maine Cooperative Extension is partnering with Maine School Administrative District 44, based in Bethel, to operate the pilot program within the school district through the University of Maine 4-H Camp & Learning Center at Bryant Pond in Woodstock, according to Learning Center Executive Director Ryder Scott.

There are two mentors who work with its cohorts. The school district has also financially invested in the program.

The opportunity to have a long-term impact on a young person’s life through mentorship was appealing to Scott when he was initially considering the pilot program, he said. Its program, called NorthStar, accepts 12-15 seventh grade students each year. Students in the program, usually identified through teachers or guidance counselors, tend to have varying levels of need.

“We’re looking for a mix of students that have different needs and different skills and assets as well, and different family backgrounds,” he said.

NorthStar provides students in the program with academic help, field trips and other activities to help build their skills and grow their confidence, he said. The organization usually provides students with one high-impact experience per year for each grade level, from camping at Acadia National Park to college tours around New England to a trip to Canada.

“When you give kids the opportunity to see things that aren’t in their normal frame of reference and have experiences in the care of a truly caring adult mentorship relationship it really changes their lives,” he said.

As students get older, the trips become more focused on helping young people decide what they want to pursue in college, he said.

Though the exercises and activities might not seem related to academics, they are all aimed at teaching students important skills they might not learn otherwise, such as the ability to set and achieve goals, he said.

For youth who have a lot of support at home and within school, those skills might come naturally but for others who do not have that kind of support they need help building those skills, he said. There can be many challenges that prevent students from developing those types of skills.

The trips, outdoor activities and other experiences help students build social emotional skills and develop leadership skills, Carpenter said.

This youth development model is different from others because those group activities act as a “vehicle” to build a relationship between a mentor and students, Scott said. That relationship helps students raise their aspirations, resulting in improved academic achievement and making them less likely to engage in risky behaviors.

Among the students in the NorthStar program, he has already seen improvements in student behavior, their attitude toward school, an increased desire to go to college and more trust in adults, he said. He plans to continue operating this program in Bethel schools.

The heart of the Aspirations Incubator model is the relationship built between the mentor and the student, Carpenter said. Those relationships help change lives and the longer that a student can maintain that relationship, they may be more likely to thrive in the future.

The Rural Youth Institute is looking to scale up those relationships, he said. He sees the role of the institute as helping organizations partnered with school districts go more in-depth with those efforts. It is also going to provide some professional development opportunities.

“We hope that the infrastructure that we build will have a huge impact because we’re not going to run programs,” he said. “We’re just going to help inspire others to do what they’re already doing more deeply and more innovatively.”

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