Har-Ber Students Serve As Mentors

With their first playoff game of the season just hours away, some Har-Ber High School football players were playing a different kind of game Friday morning: word bingo.

As they do twice per month during the season, the Har-Ber football players — all 156 of them, including varsity, junior varsity and sophomore teams — spent time Friday tutoring the children at Bernice Young Elementary School.

It’s a tradition that started four years ago. The football players, dressed in their navy football jerseys, go into the kindergarten through fifth-grade classrooms and work on literacy and math skills with the children. Sometimes that involves playing games, like word bingo.

The idea for the Wildcat Reading Buddies program sprang from a conversation Kaci Phipps, Young instructional facilitator had with her cousin, Hunter Kissinger, then a Har-Ber junior who now plays football for the University of Louisiana-Monroe.

“(Kissinger) was talking about how much he wished he could volunteer at school,” Phipps said.

One of the things football players have worked on with the elementary kids is setting literacy goals. Phipps said the goals vary for each student, but are supposed to be challenging.

Each student made a pennant stating their goals and how they planned to achieve them; those pennants hang in the Young hallway just inside the school’s front entrance. One pennant, for example, states an intention to read 10 books by Oct. 31.

All third- through fifth-graders who met or exceeded their goals earned a trip to a Har-Ber High School football pep rally.

Phipps’ son, Caden, is a fourth-grader at Young. She said he exceeded his goal of reading three chapter books.

“It’s normally a stretch for him to read one book,” she said. “He’s a very reluctant reader.”

On Friday, students in kindergarten through second grade earned rewards of their own for meeting their literacy goals: each student received a copy of the book “Game Day,” written by NFL stars and brothers Ronde and Tiki Barber.

“We chose a football-related book that really emphasized what the reading buddies work on with the students: teamwork, setting goals and perseverance,” Phipps said.

The books were paid for mostly by a $1,000 grant from the Springdale Public Schools Education Foundation.

Otherwise, the Reading Buddies program runs on a tight budget. The only other money it has received was a grant from Target four years ago.

Chris Wood, Har-Ber High’s varsity football coach, said one of the program’s purposes is to build relationships with schools that feed into Har-Ber High School. He said elementary and high school students alike benefit from the program.

“It’s an opportunity for our kids to develop their leadership skills,” Wood said.

Brady Henson, a 7-year-old second-grader at Young, said he enjoys playing bingo with the football players.

“Sometimes they just sit down and talk,” Henson said. “We talk about football and who they’re facing.”

Daniel Scheile, a Har-Ber senior and guard for the football team, has been part of the Reading Buddies program for three years.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Scheile said. “These kids look up to us. It makes us feel special.”

Carlos Jarquin, a junior and a center on the team, agreed.

“It’s a good feeling,” Jarquin said. “Everything you do is the best thing in the world to them.”

Debbie Flora, Young’s principal, said the younger kids are learning from the football players.

“They’ve learned a sense of community from these role models, and the importance of improving academically,” Flora said. “They have built a rapport with these players.”

She also remarked on the maturity of the football players, who, she said, have demonstrated a sincere interest in what the Young students are doing.