The first group is made up of Upper School students at TMI – The Episcopal School of Texas, an independent school serving grades 6 through 12 in northwest San Antonio. The younger students are in grades 2 through 5 at Leon Springs Elementary School in the Northside Independent School District. Once or twice a month, they visit each others’ campuses for structured activities and “buddy time,” when big and little buddies sit down over refreshments to catch up on what they’ve being doing in and out of school.

During a scavenger hunt at TMI earlier this fall, the students of Priceless People form small groups to brainstorm over a trail of clues hidden all over campus – a problem-solving exercise that looks and feels like a game. If there’s anything unusual about the group, it’s the quality of their discussions together: comparatively quiet and focused, with a spark of healthy competition.

What these 40 students have in common is something more important than their ages or even their schools. All were been identified by their schools as young leaders-in-the-making and were chosen to take part in Priceless People, a mentorship program with a difference.

“Oftentimes in education, we spend a lot of time trying to fix things and remediate

weaknesses,” says Kathy Dodge-Clay, principal of Leon Springs Elementary. “Priceless People is not about fixing weaknesses; it is a program that allows us to focus on strengths.” The name of program came from Dodge-Clay, whose father, Dr. Galen Dodge, wrote a book by that title on tapping the power of positive individuals within an organization.

Students on both sides of the mentorship program are nominated in recognition of their leadership potential. Recommended by their teachers, the mentors are students known as contributors to the TMI community, says Kay Parke, head of the TMI English department and faculty sponsor of the program. These students are recognized as “other-centered in their relationships, who will provide a positive role model for the elementary students.”

On the Leon Springs side, “Students are selected because they demonstrate positive interpersonal communication skills and leadership,” says Dodge-Clay. Because the program spans four grades in each school, the program is intended to foster growing relationships. “We hope to keep our second-grade students with the same buddy until they graduate from fifth grade, and the TMI student graduates from high school,” says the Leon Springs principal.

The students get to know each other through activities, sometimes with a theme or lesson, says Parke, as well as through non-structured “buddy time” near the end of the visit. For the high-school students, mentorship is “an opportunity to develop a supportive friendship and to serve as a positive role model and mentor,” says Parke.

“I have really enjoyed it,” says Tori Crawford, a TMI senior who lives in Boerne, whose buddy Lunden is a Leon Springs second-grader. “It is so much fun to see life from her side, to go back to that time of life and revisit childhood.” Participating in the program “has opened my mind,” says Crawford. “It gets me out of my world a little and reminds me what else is out there.”

Crawford, an outstanding cross-country runner, was named an AP Scholar earlier this year for her high scores on Advanced Placement (AP) tests; she also serves as president of her school’s chapter of Interact, a Rotary-sponsored community-service organization. TMI’s Priceless People participants include other high-achieving students who are excellent athletes, head campus organizations and have earned academic distinctions, such as National Merit Semifinalist designation. Part of their role is to model different ways to contribute in high school, while carrying out the school’s servant-leadership tradition through the mentoring relationship.

For the younger students, the visits are an exciting glimpse into the possibilities of their own futures as well as an inspiration for making positive contributions at Leon Springs. “The long-term goal of the Priceless People program,” says Dodge-Clay, “is that it will have a positive ripple effect through both campuses.”