Aragon’s Link Crew program will be operating online as all schools in the San Mateo Union High School District continue remote learning for the fall semester. Link Crew, which replaced Aragon’s Big Buddies program last year, focuses on mentoring freshmen as they adapt to a new high school environment.
Link Crew advisor Courtney Caldwell has been working with members to prepare for this transition since schools first closed in March.
“[In] the spring, we were in crisis mode, figuring out how we [would] immediately transition to being digital and support students in that transition,” Caldwell said.
She worked with Boomerang Project, an organization which created Link Crew, and they gave her ideas about how to virtually train the Link Crew leaders to prepare for this year. When she later met with the leaders, they did some team bonding activities and discussed how they would work with freshmen and transfer students when school starts.
After the training process with the Link Crew leaders, they connected with freshmen online. There were two orientation sessions per group that were each about an hour long. Within that time period, the leaders did team building, introduced themselves to the freshman, told them about what it’s like at Aragon when students are on campus and even gave them time to go explore Canvas.
“I think it will be harder to set up really engaging events and get a feel of how we connect and interact with one another”
To make virtual events more doable, Link Crew agreed to have most of their activities center around individual reactions instead of cooperation. In addition, they decided that each orientation session would be cut down to one hour, as it’s difficult to do the normally seven hour chunks online. Therefore, there will be more oftenly recurring meetings this year.
However, some Link Crew leaders are concerned that they won’t be able to be as engaging with freshmen as they were last year.
“I think it will be harder to set up really engaging events and get a feel of how we connect and interact with one another,” said senior Link Crew leader Kaitlyn Duong. “That’s usually something you only get when you understand someone else’s personality and are able to have a conversation in person.”
Freshman Donya Adibi agrees that there are issues when it comes to doing Link Crew online, but she thinks there will also be positive outcomes.
“I feel like we would get to meet each other much faster if [the event] was in person and it would be a more fun experience for everyone”
“The activities didn’t make me learn too much about everyone because we just did some name games, and we said a couple of facts about ourselves,” Adibi said. “I feel like we would get to meet each other much faster if [the event] was in person and it would be a more fun experience for everyone. [But] overall, I think the Link Crew leaders really cleared things up for us and made it really convenient [as] they gave us a lot of advice about high school and answered all of our questions.”
Sophomore Kiana Dokanchi had a really positive experience with Link Crew last year when the program wasn’t virtual and hopes that they can still follow up with the same values and engage with the freshman.
“[It’s important to] make sure the freshmen know we care about them and that they’re not alone,” Dokanchi said. “Being in a situation where you have someone who’s been through what I’ve been through [made me feel] really supported [during freshman year] and I loved the experience. I really hope [Link Crew] provides the same supportive environment [this year], tries to make it as personal as possible and [makes sure] freshmen are getting the tools they need. I believe that we’re all in this together.”
As the whole Aragon community comes together and adapts to online communication and learning through the duration of the pandemic, Link Crew takes part and organizes to successfully play their role.
