The Beyond School Walls program is a workplace mentoring partnership between local businesses and career academy students managed by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Florida. Students are transported monthly to business sites to meet with mentors and learn about the industry, earning certifications to enhance opportunities after graduation. A match support specialist monitors mentor-student relationships and ensures classroom learning aligns with workplace exposure. In 2012-13, six partnerships served 252 students, of which 97.5% regularly attended school, 97% had no suspensions or referrals, and 96% were promoted.

2. Program Description
• Beyond School Walls is a workplace mentoring partnership
between mentors from a local business and career
academy students focused in the same targeted industry.
Managed by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Florida
(BBBSNEFL), the students are transported to the business
site once a month for four hours to meet with their mentor
and learn about the business. The students will earn
industry certifications that will enhance their opportunities
after graduation. This partnership enriches the education
and preparation of the career academy students by
providing meaningful and relevant experiences. Each
business is asked to make a three year commitment to
assure that the mentors and students stay together until
graduation from high school.

3. Program Description contin’d
• A BBBSNEFL match support specialist (MMS), who is
assigned to the partnership, travels with the students
to the worksite and monitors all mentor/mentee
relationships. Individual improvement plans with
specific academic goals are developed for each student
in concert with the match support specialist, student
and teacher. Continuous communication between the
teacher and MSS provides alignment and relevance
between what the student is learning in the classroom
and what he/she is exposed to in the workplace. The
MSS documents all interactions and tracks
grades, attendance, behavior and promotion to the
next grade in the BBBSNEFL web-based information
system.

4. Program Results
• In the 2012-13 school year, BBBSNEFL managed six Beyond School
Walls partnerships that served 252 high school students.
Collectively, the partnership results showed that of the 252
students, 97.5% attended school regularly, 97% had no referrals or
suspensions and 96% were promoted to the next grade. Although
most sessions were reserved for one-to-one mentoring
interactions, there were group sessions with facilitated
presentations and discussions on topics such as college
readiness, financial aid, banking, leadership and public speaking.
They also participated in community service projects and four
mentors and students were on the Jags Teen Talk Show moderated
by Jaguar player and Big Brother Russell Allen. BBBSNEFL is working
closely with Duval County Public Schools and the Chamber to
expand these partnerships to all high schools over the next couple
of years.

5. Student Run Food Truck
• As an extension of Beyond School Walls, Big Brothers Big Sisters leads a
collaboration among 6 Duval County Public Schools and the Jax Chamber
to allow students to design and operate a food truck.
• The project spans 5 fast growing industry sectors that the students will be
immersed in: Logistics, Information Technology, Financial Services, Health
and Culinary Arts.
• This exposure gives students a real life application of how core business
functions work together.

6. • Video coming soon!