Each year since the Mentorship Program began in 1997, more students, parents, and military members have become involved. Teachers, parents, counselors, and administrators identify student participants from grades 6-12 and complete Mentor Requests. Students may also self-select to join the Mentorship Program. The school recruits mentors from the parent and military population. Once the mentors apply and go through a screening process, they complete the initial training sessions.
Mentors commit to meeting with their mentees one day a week for at least one semester.
The program continues to conduct trainings throughout the year. In addition, the high school's School Home Partnership and the Mentorship Program collaborated to jointly produce supplemental partnership programs for the students. The Mentorship Program and Aviano High School also partnered with many agencies to provide a Summer Hire Job Fair and a Job Ready Program. According to our survey, students' grades, effort, relationships with peers, parents and teachers, knowledge about careers and colleges, self-esteem, and overall planning for post high school education have all improved for the students who were involved in the Mentorship Program. Mentors who have completed training and started seeing a student rarely dropped out of the program.