Spring Branch ISD Featured News

Seventeen eighth-grade students from Landrum Middle School have been selected to embark upon Flight 25, the innovative mentoring program designed to inform and inspire students to continue with some form of higher education after graduating from Northbrook High School.

Flight 25, which participants in Leadership Houston began in 2007 as a class project, is now back up and running again after pausing in the spring of 2020 when the pandemic started. More students will likely join the new 17 students in the program as the year progresses.

The new students participating in the four-year mentorship program will first attend two all-day workshops, along with their parents, on April 2 and 9. In the first session, students will hear more about the overall program and various career paths and then take a field trip to the University of Houston campus for a walking tour.

On April 9, students will learn about college, scholarships, grants and internships. In addition to other topics, the eighth graders will listen to a panel of professionals talk about their work careers and how each of them got there.

“Involving parents in these all-day workshops is one of the most powerful parts of the Flight 25 program,” says Suzie Jones of Training Resources Consulting, LLC, one of the program’s founders. “It’s key that parents be involved. And because many of these parents may not speak English, we provide headsets and interpreters to help remove any language barriers. We want them to be engaged, ask questions and help support their children as they participate.”

Flight 25 participants will continue with monthly mentoring sessions throughout their four years at Northbrook where they will be introduced to speakers from various industries and fields, such as the arts, engineering, finance, science and teaching. The newly revived program is being conducted as a partnership with Landrum Middle School, Northbrook High School and NewSpring, the community organization focused on providing a new beginning for those in Spring Branch seeking cultural enrichment, economic opportunities and spiritual growth. NewSpring now leads the overall Flight 25 program.

“Flight 25 truly has been a community partnership involving teachers and administrators from Landrum and Northbrook, NewSpring, together with students and their families. And, I also want to acknowledge my previous employer, Amegy Bank, for its significant support in the earlier days of the program,” Jones says.

Approximately 325 students have completed the Flight 25 program in its 13 years of operation. Once each student concludes the four years of mentoring and graduates from Northbrook, he or she receives a $1,000 scholarship that can be used as tuition for a technical school, college or university.

Jones says part of her passion for helping found Flight 25 came from her own experiences when her parents knew very little about pursuing scholarships, and she missed an opportunity to obtain one.

“Educating parents and students about scholarships and other career opportunities is really what drives the program,” she says. “Over the years I’ve shared with students that I did not graduate from college—I left college after two years and started my own company. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit and that served me well at the bank and in my own business. I share that with students to acknowledge that college is not for everyone and that entrepreneurs have their own sort of education.”

Jones tips her hat to NewSpring for helping revive the program and providing new, ongoing leadership. The student mentoring program is a good fit for NewSpring because of its dedication to elevating lives and lifting communities.

“We welcome these incoming freshmen students to the Flight 25 program,” says Earl Lambert, Board Chair of NewSpring. “They’ll be joining the sophomores, juniors and seniors who are already in the program and learning about the wide range of career possibilities and educational opportunities that await them following high school.”