Daleville High students given international mentoring honor

By Kelly Tabor

Published: August 4, 2008

Two Daleville High School students returned from Dallas last week where they were honored with one of the top four spots of 164 mentoring teams around the world.

Ariana Davis and Kevin Phipps, who run the Student 2 Student program at DHS, were recognized in July by the Military Child Education Coalition. The conference, held in Grapevine, Texas, marked Military Child’s tenth anniversay.

“They were among the upper echelon of the education world and of the military world,” said guidance counselor Margie Treadwell, adding that Gen. Norton Schwartz, Gen. Tommy Franks and Gen. William E. “Kip” Ward were present among the crowd of 800. “You’d think they’d have important things to attend to, but they made this a priority.”

The conference hosted the top four teams and DHS, with just 400 students, was the smallest school with the smallest team.

Since last December, Davis and Phipps have invested time away from academic and extracurricular activites to participate in the peer mentor program, which helps new and transitioning students get settled at DHS.

“We aren’t just concerned with them academically, but socially,” said Treadwell. “If you don’t reach a child within two weeks, a lot of things can go wrong.”

Phipps and Davis, who are both seniors this year, estimated that as many as 50 percent of DHS students are children of active duty or retired military parents, which makes the school an ideal setting for the program to thrive. Phipps, who said that the team heavily marketed the program on Fort Rucker television, has moved 11 times in ten years due to military assignments.

“This move was the hardest one I’ve ever done,” said Phipps of his most recent move just after Freshman year. “Guidance counselors can help with classes, but we work more directly with students. Our team provides a ready-made friend for new kids.”

Davis and Phipps also implemented the ACCESS program, Alabama Connecting Classroom Educators and Students Statewide, which assists students in online courses to make sure out-of-state credits will transfer over.