GEAR UP is a grant program designed to help prepare students, academically and financially for postsecondary education.

“We follow one class of students from the time they are in seventh grade until they graduate from high school, all the while providing guidance for future careers, colleges and opportunities available to them,” GEAR UP Enrichment Coordinator Kyla Kentworthy said.

GEAR UP stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. The goal of the program is to improve college awareness, stress the importance of education, increase family and student knowledge of postsecondary school preparation, increase the number of students who complete high school and sustain the program beyond federal funding.

“The program spans to include a wide variety of activities including a robotics program, college campus visits, tutoring and mentoring, providing school supplies, scholarship and college application assistance, ACT preparation and job shadowing,” Kentworthy said.

Will Ratliff, GEAR UP Caprock High School site coordinator, said he feels like the program offers numerous opportunities to students that might have not been available to them elsewhere.

“We have definitely seen improvements in our students over the last few years, not only in test scores and grades, but also in overall confidence and exposure to different aspects of college access and readiness,” Ratliff said.

“Even more important, though, are the relationships that each of our coordinators – we have six at four different high schools – has with our students,” Ratliff said. “We feel that this is the most impactful part of our job and the hardest to quantify.  Because we have been with the students for several years, there is a relationship of trust and respect that is difficult to establish – one that we hope will not just affect the student now but will be able to change their future.”

The Amarillo GEAR UP program includes the Hereford, Dumas, Caprock and Palo Duro school districts.

“Our grant has grown in many ways to meet specific needs of the students in our cohort,” Kentworthy said. “For example, we have expanded upon programs that were already written into the grant and tailored them to fit the needs of our students.  The longer we are with these students, the more students we see coming on their own initiative to seek help.”

According to WTAMU instructor and WT GEAR UP representative Mona Gregory, the University became involved in 2010 but really kicked off and built a strong relationship with the mentoring aspect of the program last year.

Communications major Chris Bridenbaugh took initiative to become involved with GEAR UP after hearing about it from Gregory in a majors meeting.

“I feel like I have helped my student learn to make more responsible decisions and to understand that cost should not be a factor that prevents anyone from achieving their goals,” he said. “In fact, the student that I am currently mentoring has set a goal to go to Tulane University and pursue a career in computer sciences.”

Bridenbaugh said he believes that GEAR UP is an important program.

“It provides these high school students with a safe outlet to discuss the situations in their lives without fear of being judged or rejected by a parent or peer,” he said.  “These students have stories to tell and true fears about what they are going to do with their lives, and it is important for them to have people that can help walk them through this time in their lives and who provide them with a support system that nurtures their success.”

WT works primarily with the Palo Duro and Caprock school districts. WT students can volunteer to mentor a student or help with other various tasks.

“They really do want that one-on-one relationship,” Gregory said. “They really do want to pour into people, and they want to see the result. They commit to a mentorship relationship, and they go one time a week to Caprock and invest in that student.”

Bridenbaugh has gained a lot from his experience as a mentor.

“There was a moment when I was working with my student one day and realized how much we had been helping each other and I was taking away just as much from this experience as he was,” he said.

Gregory expects about 20 more students to participate this coming semester and hopes that the number of volunteers will continually grow. Anyone with the time and the desire to help students can become a mentor.

“Our students did benefit greatly from these relationships,” Gregory said. “We want to continue. We want to get more students to volunteer.”

The future of GEAR UP is not 100 percent secure as it is a grant-based program. Funding is a concern.

“We are funded through the summer of 2013. However, beyond that, our future is unclear,” Ratliff said.  “I really believe in this program and hope that we are able to be funded again because we have the opportunity to affect thousands of students across the panhandle.”