ORLANDO, Fla. – Last October, News 6 told you about a breakthrough solution at middle schools across Orlando: The city embedded five adults full-time at the schools to do nothing but get troubled kids back on track.
We introduced you to one of those mentors: Elliot Cohen, affectionately referred to as Mr. Elliot by his students.
A year later, Mr. Elliot is getting results.
Behavioral referrals at his school, Roberto Clemente Middle School, are down 20% since Mr. Elliot started. Suspensions and expulsions have dropped 42%.
Why?
Because Mr. Elliot is all in.
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One of his students, 12-year-old Kayden, explained how.
“He helped get me out of trouble,” Kayden said. “I used fake money fake money. And he kept me from getting expelled.”
Kayden lives with his mother, his mother’s boyfriend and his grandparents.
“[Mr. Elliot] he’s brother to me, he’s family,” Kayden said. “Because strangers just don’t help other people stay out of trouble. That man right there - Mr. Elliot - he will help you out, he’ll keep you out of trouble. Nobody else would do that but him right there. That’s why he’s family to me. Let’s say I’m not at school, he’ll call the school to check up on me. No other person at school would do that for me but Mr. Elliot.”
Kayden’s words were enough to make Mr. Elliot sob.
“I can’t even put into words what I’m feeling,” Elliot Cohen said. “This is like, this is what we do. We’re about making change. If you’re not doing something that’s making change they’re going to let you know about it. So what we’re doing here is something that’s uncut, it’s raw, it’s unedited and you’re hearing the truth from these young people. I feel like I just won the lottery.”
Cohen is what the City of Orlando calls a Lead Student Advocate. For the first time last year, five were embedded full-time into Roberto Clemente, Carver, College Park, Ace and Memorial Middle Schools.
Last year, the City’s My Brother’s Keeper program – which provides wrap-around support for boys and young men of color – spent $1.7 million for the Advocates and all of the things they do, like buying vehicles to drive the students to activities, community centers, even meals, before and after schools.
Cohen is not a teacher. He’s mentor, friend and father-figure. All day, every day, he advocates for the 25 at-risk young men selected by the school. He steps in to stop them from failing, fighting or missing school.
The Lead Student Advocate position is not a 9-5 job. It begins early in the morning, often with checking on the young men, and ends late at night, often with driving them home and even stopping for dinner to make sure they’re fed.
“We are not the excuse school, we’re not the excuse brotherhood,” Cohen tells the students. “You got a phone call this morning. Now school doesn’t start till what time, 9:30am? What time do you get a phone call from Mr. Elliot, 7am? And you know what else I did, I called your mom and I could hear the frustration in her voice. And you know what I told her? I said we got you. We got you.”
Last Thanksgiving, Cohen drove from his home in Tavares to meet with Kayden at his home in Orlando.
“He’s an hour and 10 minutes away,” Kayden said. “To have a brother to brother talk. To talk about how to stay out of trouble, how to improve. Let’s say there’s a whole other group talking about something else, and I wanted to join that group, but I’m late to class. It’s not just them getting in trouble, it’s me too. He wants to talk about that on how to stay out of that trouble and how to get to class.”
Couldn’t Mr. Elliot have talked to Kayden the next time he saw him at school?
“He could have, but he didn’t,” Kayden said. “Because I’m his brother.”
And that brotherhood is expanding. My Brother’s Keeper just received another $750,000 to add advocates at two high schools, full-time, for the first time ever – Edgewater and Jones.
Those two additional Student Advocates are currently being hired. You can apply here:
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