Sunday, June 15, 2025
In 2014, President Barack Obama changed young people across the country with the creation of the My Brother’s Keeper program, a six-step plan for improving opportunities for young people — including students in the Uniondale school district.
The program’s second milestone, getting students to read at grade-level by third grade, was the focus of a new reading and mentoring program known as Page Pals at Walnut Street Elementary School.
Over the course of five weeks,
third-grade students from Walnut Street and teens from youth leadership organization Jack and Jill enjoyed reading together, as well as talking about books and what their stories mean.
Takiya St. Germain is the mother of two children who took part in the program. Her twins, Peyton and Jaxon, are third-graders at Walnut Street.
“I feel like it helped build their reading confidence — it felt very comfortable,” Takiya said. “My kids got personalized, one-on-one practice reading aloud in an environment that was very comfortable for them, because most of the time we were at home.”
The twins were enthusiastic to see their mentors every week, she said, praising the mentors for going above and beyond in making the lessons thought-provoking and educational.
“Some of the kids were really good,” Takiya said. “They would try to help my kids make connections between the characters and the story and their own lives and ask, ‘How would you respond to the situation if you were the character?’”
While this year’s program was focused on a smaller group of young students, St. Germain encouraged it to continue. “I’m hoping that the school district continues on with this program next year, and maybe we can expand it where we invite more kids,” she said. “We value our children learning inside and both outside of the classroom, and we’re always looking for enrichment programs.”
Nicole Thomas-Sealey, lead teen adviser of Jack and Jill of Nassau County, worked with the district to provide mentors for the program.
“Page Pals was a partnership with the Uniondale school district,” Thomas-Sealey explained. “They have the My Brother’s Keeper program, so we partnered with them to bring a literacy mentoring program to life.”
Michelle Peterson-Davis, director of English Arts for the Uniondale school district, helped make the Page Pals program possible.
“Page Pals grew out of a discussion between our superintendent, Monique Darrisaw-Akil, and one of our community partners, the Jack and Jill of Nassau County, to try and develop a mentoring program between teenagers and some of our students,” Peterson-Davis said. “It was a really rewarding experience for both the teens and for the students. At our ceremony, we had some of the teens share how much they enjoyed meeting with the students.”
The program debuted with an in-person meeting of parents, students and teens at which they learned about the program, and formed reading groups.
For the following four weeks, the readers met online to go through additional books. The sessions took place on Google Meet every Tuesday with a new book, provided by the publisher Scholastic.
The program concluded with an in-person celebration at Walnut Street School on April 24, complete with pizza and certificates of completion for the participants.
“It really exceeded our expectations,” Peterson-Davis said.
