Elementary and high school students don't interact much unless they live in the same house.

That is all changing in Lehighton Area School District thanks to a new mentoring program, Partners in Academics and Leadership in Schools."We see a wide range of students from those struggling to those achieving great success," said Patti Ebbert and Kelly Fritz, two Response to Instruction and Intervention teachers in the district who run the PALS program."There has been a lot of talk about how to fill that gap. A lot of our younger students look at the high school students like they're celebrities, and we thought we could get a positive impact out of that relationship. One out of three young people grow up without a mentor."The goal of the PALS program is to provide academic, social and self-esteem support to students at Shull-David, Franklin, East Penn and Mahoning elementary schools.High school students arrive at their respective elementary schools around 2 p.m. Each student offers their time one to four days per week and mentors two to four elementary students per day.The mentoring sessions each last around 15 minutes.Lehighton started the program March 7 and it ran until the week of high school finals."The response from our high school students was amazing," Ebbert said. "We pitched it to them and we printed out about 30 sign-up forms. We easily ran out of forms as about 100 students took one."In the end, 63 high school students signed up for the program and tutored 100 students, 50 from Mahoning and Shull-David and 50 from Franklin and East Penn.Ebbert and Fritz trained the students in how to "buddy read," and give constructive criticism.The relationships that came out of it are priceless, Ebbert said."One of our high school students knew the program was coming to a close and went to Barnes and Noble to buy his little pal a book that the student was reading but had to return back to the library to keep it from being overdue," Ebbert said.Franklin and East Penn Principal Sue Howland said not only does the mentoring process benefit the students academically, but also socially."My son had a buddy and he would see them at track meets and different places and just be so excited," said Jackie Hansler, mother of Ian, a fourth-grader at Shull-David. "Ian was always excited to tell us the things they did. I noticed a big difference since he started."One of the first-year issues was transportation and getting the high school students, mostly sophomores and juniors, to the elementary schools.Even a few retired grandparents offered to drive to make sure the mentoring could take place."That's something we're working on," Ebbert said. "Having an elementary center next to the high school would be a big deal and completely alleviate that issue."