Written by UCI researchers Maggie Dahn, Seth Corrigan, Kylie Peppler, and Mizuko Ito in collaboration with Alison O’Toole, Network Lead and Vice President of Beyond School Bells and Jeff Cole, outgoing Network Lead
Building on earlier findings from Nebraska’s near-peer mentorship model implementation (Dahn & Peppler, 2023), this case study examines how Beyond School Bells – a program of the Nebraska Children and Families Foundation and Nebraska’s statewide afterschool network – partnered with programs in two rural counties to develop and implement this model as a strategy to support STEM learning among both younger and older youth. These efforts are part of the Beyond School Bells Engineering Pathways project, which offers K–12 students hands-on, connected STEM learning experiences that promote skill development and cultivate engineering mindsets in youth. The question that drove the work of Beyond School Bells was: How can networks develop sustainable, youth-centered models that support connected STEM learning pathways?
Beyond School Bells (BSB) addressed this challenge through a near-peer mentorship model that expands access to STEM opportunities in underserved rural communities (i.e., through Cardinal Community Learning Centers (CCLC) in Crete and the Scottsbluff Public School Afterschool Program), strengthens out-of-school time staffing, and builds youth pathways into STEM careers across Nebraska. This approach works by leveraging local assets, offering meaningful leadership roles for high school and college students, and aligning with community-specific workforce needs in a cost-effective way. In the sections that follow, we outline the context of Beyond School Bells, describe a problem of practice that the network identified, describe their approach to designing for that problem of practice, and highlight key ways they leveraged their approach to making connections to improve their impact. Below is a visual timeline summarizing key milestones from the implementation phase:
Beyond School Bells’ stated mission is “to build partnerships that lead to policies and actions at both the state and local levels resulting in more high-quality, locally sustainable afterschool and summer programs serving more Nebraska youth” (Beyond School Bells, 2025a). Alison O’Toole, Vice President of Beyond School Bells, shared the network’s four key strategic goals, which include supporting: 1) quality programming; 2) sustainability of partnerships, people, and funding; 3) the creation and refinement of local and state policies in support of out-of-school programming; and 4) the development of strategic programming that adapts to local, state, and national needs. Alison explained that in their position as Nebraska’s statewide afterschool network, Beyond School Bells is “a connection point between national and statewide opportunities that really strengthens and builds relationships within the partnerships” they cultivate. As a connecting agent, Beyond School Bells aims to support high-quality collaboration and professional development for their program partners.
Nebraska has been working to support the development and implementation of near-peer mentorship models in different contexts for some time. Along the way, network leaders have discovered a few keys to success around which they continue to build their current efforts. Several of these insights surfaced during the first phase of collaborative research with Beyond School Bells and the Connected Learning Lab of UC Irvine (Dahn & Peppler, 2021). During this joint inquiry, we found that near-peer mentors should be consulted when developing the programming they will be tasked with implementing. Additionally, near-peer leaders ought to be financially incentivized for participating (e.g., through a stipend or scholarship).
From a logistics standpoint, the program schedule should be developed with the near-peers’ schedules and availability in mind with clear expectations and goals co-developed at the onset of the project. In addition to being paid, the near-peer mentorship role should be framed as a leadership opportunity that can support older youth in their academic and career-related goals. To set the program up for success, supportive adults should choose near-peer mentors who can connect with mentees through shared identity markers (e.g., race, gender, family background) and who are committed to seeing the project through to completion. In addition to support from the program level, the network can support near-peer mentorship by connecting organizations and providing supportive infrastructure for program partners. Supportive adults who lead the project ought to express passion, enthusiasm, and commitment to seeing a peer-mentorship project through, taking the long-view. Network-level supports are required to purposefully connect organizations and coordinate resources and alignment across settings. The iteration of this near-peer mentorship work built upon these insights to support their approach this year.
The Peter Kiewit Foundation, a long-term partner of Beyond School Bells, provides 40 full-ride scholarships a year to young people in Nebraska through an application process and had been hoping to attract more young people outside of the urban centers. Because the foundation knew that Beyond School Bells already had connections with rural communities across the state, they approached BSB to brainstorm ideas to increase awareness of the opportunity that leveraged BSB’s statewide reach. Together, they co-developed the Engineering Pathways project, of which the near-peer mentorship strategy is central.
The Engineering Pathways project builds on Beyond School Bells’ existing long-term relationship with the Peter Kiewit Foundation. The project uses existing programming structures that were successfully implemented with high school leaders leading STEM activities as near-peer mentors and added a layer that provided the high school leaders with weekly mentor opportunities with UNL college students studying STEM fields. Alison discussed that prior to the Engineering pathway project, bringing in high school students as staff was a sustainability strategy in response to persistent staffing issues programs across the state were experiencing. Not having enough trained professionals to lead STEM educational development led to roadblocks in growing afterschool and summer programming to support young people in STEM. Alison described the need their team identified for supporting young people they work with who are interested in pursuing STEM interests and opportunities:
Like everywhere else, STEM is the fastest growing career sector in Nebraska. And it also provides a good standard of living, so we feel that exposing youth to STEM has a lot of benefits for them as individuals and for the economy in Nebraska. So we’re looking to address that challenge and help build up a youth workforce that can help solve the staffing problems that programs are facing.
— Alison O’Toole, Vice President of Beyond School Bells
The near-peer mentorship model in Nebraska addresses the two specific problems of practice in a low-cost and straightforward way by building on the strengths of near-peers to cultivate STEM interest in younger youth. The near-peer mentorship model responds to the need for more staff and a model that can be adapted and implemented in different areas across the state, including those rural areas they had hoped to reach.
The near-peer mentorship model in Nebraska supports high school youth (and in some cases, college-aged students) as staff members, or near-peers, who lead elementary and middle school youth through hands-on STEM experiences. The network’s overarching theory in development of this near-peer model argues that youth respond best to learning activities that are facilitated by near peers and near peers are simultaneously supported through this process as they develop in their teaching and deepen their own STEM interests and commitments. The program also engaged families in STEM activities and development around STEM pathways and career trajectories. Scottsbluff and Crete also both held events for families – they shared a meal and offered engineering activities for families to do with their children.
Alison explained that as a statewide network, they are “really invested in this near-peer model” and further shared that they began implementing a near-peer model when considering how to support “sustainability” in response to challenges programs faced around recruiting and retaining staff. As Alison described,
Hiring older youth staff was an innovation in that space because they were affordable and also because it provided the older youth with great opportunities, and we started getting data back about how appreciative the regular staff were of having older youth come in because the elementary and middle school youth really light up when the high school student walks into the room. They get excited and energized by that near-peer energy.
— Alison O’Toole, Vice President of Beyond School Bells
Because of the success of their existing programming and based on consistently positive feedback from both near-peer mentors and the mentees, Alison explained that as a network, they began putting a stronger emphasis on “developing, finding, and curating materials that would support training and scaffolding to make sure that the older youth could build the confidence that they need working with younger youth.” By adapting and consistently refining the program, the network supports continuous improvement of the near-peer mentorship model over time as it is implemented in different contexts across the state.
In terms of benefits to both the older and younger youth, Alison explained that their near-peer mentorship model gives “older youth the space to build their leadership skills…and they are also expanding their own STEM knowledge. And some of them actually find out that they want to teach.” Alison related this last finding to some of the afterschool literature that describes near-peer mentoring as a pathway to teaching professions, especially when those programs use high quality curriculum and invest in training the older youth mentors.
The near-peer model utilized in the Engineering Pathway project had two tiers. At the top tier were the college students at the University of Nebraska, majoring in STEM-relative fields, who provided mentorship to the high school leaders on a weekly basis via online meetings. The college student preparation included a required 6 hours of in person training and weekly check-ins with the project coordinator after the initial training.
Because of the success of their existing programming and based on consistently positive feedback from both near-peer mentors and the mentees, Alison explained that as a network, they began putting a stronger emphasis on “developing, finding, and curating materials that would support training and scaffolding to make sure that the older youth could build the confidence that they need working with younger youth.” By adapting and consistently refining the program, the network supports continuous improvement of the near-peer mentorship model over time as it is implemented in different contexts across the state.
In terms of benefits to both the older and younger youth, Alison explained that their near-peer mentorship model gives “older youth the space to build their leadership skills…and they are also expanding their own STEM knowledge. And some of them actually find out that they want to teach.”
Alison related this last finding to some of the afterschool literature that describes near-peer mentoring as a pathway to teaching professions, especially when those programs use high quality curriculum and invest in training the older youth mentors.
The near-peer model utilized in the Engineering Pathway project had two tiers. At the top tier were the college students at the University of Nebraska, majoring in STEM-relative fields, who provided mentorship to the high school leaders on a weekly basis via online meetings. The college student preparation included a required 6 hours of in person training and weekly check-ins with the project coordinator after the initial training.
In the spring and fall of 2024 after the initial college mentor training sessions, Beyond School Bells coordinated in-person kick off events between the college mentors, high school staff, and after school staff in order to introduce everyone over a meal and work through a STEM activity together.
Following the kick-off event, the high school and college students met weekly, pairing two college mentors per online meeting when possible. Financial investments included support to get the program off the ground and to hire staff. High school youth at Crete and the college mentors were paid hourly. In Scottsbluff, since the high school youth were part of a competitive math team, payment came in the form of donations based on hours worked to the team to support travel costs for their events. Investments for each site depended on the local assets and needs and listening to local voices to find the best fit.
In relation to the partnership structure, Alison spoke to differences across the near-peer mentorship programs in each of the sites in Saline (Crete) and Scottsbluff counties where they are currently working to coordinate the continued evolution of this model. Crete is only about 17 miles from one of the Beyond School Bells offices in Lincoln, Nebraska, while Scottsbluff is more rural––about a 7 hour drive––located in the Nebraska Panhandle. Scottsbluff was purposefully chosen for this project because despite the distance from the network headquarters, they are a strong strategic partner where Beyond School Bells also has a Think-Make-Create (TMC) Lab (Beyond School Bells, 2025b) currently operating. Additionally, to ensure the success of the partnership, Scottsbluff invested in a curriculum for their STEM programming that required less support from the network partners, which was helpful for training purposes given the physical distance between the network and program. Additionally, the math club leader served as the on-the-ground supervisor/youth coordinator–a necessary structural pillar for geographically distant sites. The initial professional development for training the near-peer mentors in Scottsbluff county has been via Zoom while initial training has been held in person in Saline County (Crete).”
Though each had its own unique context for this research effort, Beyond School Bells had previous strong relationships with both Crete and Scottsbluff.
In relation to the partnership structure, Alison spoke to differences across the near-peer mentorship programs in each of the sites in Saline (Crete) and Scottsbluff counties where they are currently working to coordinate the continued evolution of this model. Crete is only about 17 miles from one of the Beyond School Bells offices in Lincoln, Nebraska, while Scottsbluff is more rural––about a 7 hour drive––located in the Nebraska Panhandle. Scottsbluff was purposefully chosen for this project because despite the distance from the network headquarters, they are a strong strategic partner where Beyond School Bells also has a Think-Make-Create (TMC) Lab (Beyond School Bells, 2025b) currently operating. Additionally, to ensure the success of the partnership, Scottsbluff invested in a curriculum for their STEM programming that required less support from the network partners, which was helpful for training purposes given the physical distance between the network and program.
Additionally, the math club leader served as the on-the-ground supervisor/youth coordinator–a necessary structural pillar for geographically distant sites. The initial professional development for training the near-peer mentors in Scottsbluff county has been via Zoom while initial training has been held in person in Saline County (Crete).”
Though each had its own unique context for this research effort, Beyond School Bells had previous strong relationships with both Crete and Scottsbluff. These two rural communities were places they had already engaged in multiple projects, including one on environmental conservation, take-home STEM backpacks, and other various grant projects. Alison explained, “they’re just long-term stellar partners.” Alison, Jeff Cole (the former Beyond School Bells Network Lead), and the rest of the BSB team consistently demonstrate a wealth of knowledge about their partners, knowing them at an intimate level in terms of how they recruit, implement programming, and adapt as they gather and process feedback.
Alison explained that having regular monthly “learning sessions” has helped her team to better understand how each site is approaching their work on the ground. Additionally, because they take an integrated approach to program support and have multiple touchpoints with partners across a range of different projects and contexts, it makes it more likely that they would have opportunities to collaborate and coordinate to provide support necessary to implement the near-peer model in both settings. Alison explained that a key to their success included regular check-ins, continual conversations with partners, and finding balance in the frequency and intensity of the support they provide. Alison noted that their partners really appreciated check-ins and reminders of grant goals.
In terms of differences in how they structured their recruitment of near-peer mentors, in Crete, Alison explained that they have “a high school staff workforce of 21 youth right now. So we could lean on their workforce and who was interested and wanted to lead the engineering program.” In Scottsbluff, Beyond School Bells partnered with “the local math team, and it’s the math club students who come in and they’re not actually after school staff. They are really hardcore competitive across the country, and they travel a lot. So the after school program donates money to the math club, and the students come in and do [the mentorship] as a kind of service learning project.” Keeping these locally tied and building on the strengths of each individual community helps keep the near-peer mentorship programs specific to the contexts in which they operate.
Reported outcomes for the Engineering Pathways project included 221 elementary school students and 70 middle school students participating in Fall 2023. Ninety-five (95) elementary students and 31 middle school students participated in Fall 2024. In 2023 there were 4 programs participating, and in 2024 they had 2 programs participate, which accounts for some of the difference in enrollment numbers. Survey results from the project indicated that elementary students are learning about engineering jobs and believe that they can become engineers. They report having fun in the program and that they like engineering. Middle school youth also reported that they liked engineering and that activities were fun. Pre-post survey interest-related items moved positively, for example, participants more frequently expressed a belief that they could become engineers, and a desire to understand engineering concepts after completing programming sessions. The high school near-peer leaders reported finding joy in teaching younger students, an increased interest in being teachers and working with youth and building relationships with them, and increased leadership skills. High school leaders also reported that the program helped expose them to what the field of engineering offers and broadened their understanding of what it means to be part of the engineering field. The table below offers some key challenges and solutions the Nebraska statewide afterschool network encountered during the implementation period of this project.
These two rural communities were places they had already engaged in multiple projects, including one on environmental conservation, take-home STEM backpacks, and other various grant projects. Alison explained, “they’re just long-term stellar partners.” Alison, Jeff Cole (the former Beyond School Bells Network Lead), and the rest of the BSB team consistently demonstrate a wealth of knowledge about their partners, knowing them at an intimate level in terms of how they recruit, implement programming, and adapt as they gather and process feedback.
Alison explained that having regular monthly “learning sessions” has helped her team to better understand how each site is approaching their work on the ground. Additionally, because they take an integrated approach to program support and have multiple touchpoints with partners across a range of different projects and contexts, it makes it more likely that they would have opportunities to collaborate and coordinate to provide support necessary to implement the near-peer model in both settings. Alison explained that a key to their success included regular check-ins, continual conversations with partners, and finding balance in the frequency and intensity of the support they provide. Alison noted that their partners really appreciated check-ins and reminders of grant goals.
In terms of differences in how they structured their recruitment of near-peer mentors, in Crete, Alison explained that they have “a high school staff workforce of 21 youth right now. So we could lean on their workforce and who was interested and wanted to lead the engineering program.” In Scottsbluff, Beyond School Bells partnered with “the local math team, and it’s the math club students who come in and they’re not actually after school staff. They are really hardcore competitive across the country, and they travel a lot. So the after school program donates money to the math club, and the students come in and do [the mentorship] as a kind of service learning project.” Keeping these locally tied and building on the strengths of each individual community helps keep the near-peer mentorship programs specific to the contexts in which they operate.
Reported outcomes for the Engineering Pathways project included 221 elementary school students and 70 middle school students participating in Fall 2023. Ninety-five (95) elementary students and 31 middle school students participated in Fall 2024. In 2023 there were 4 programs participating, and in 2024 they had 2 programs participate, which accounts for some of the difference in enrollment numbers. Survey results from the project indicated that elementary students are learning about engineering jobs and believe that they can become engineers. They report having fun in the program and that they like engineering. Middle school youth also reported that they liked engineering and that activities were fun. Pre-post survey interest-related items moved positively, for example, participants more frequently expressed a belief that they could become engineers, and a desire to understand engineering concepts after completing programming sessions. The high school near-peer leaders reported finding joy in teaching younger students, an increased interest in being teachers and working with youth and building relationships with them, and increased leadership skills. High school leaders also reported that the program helped expose them to what the field of engineering offers and broadened their understanding of what it means to be part of the engineering field. The table below offers some key challenges and solutions the Nebraska statewide afterschool network encountered during the implementation period of this project.
| Challenges | Solutions |
|---|---|
Instilling confidence in near-peer facilitator leaders | Intentionally created a strong and iterative support system for older youth leaders; in person regular staff support managing younger youth behaviors during activities so older youth leaders could focus on delivering lessons |
Building strong relationships with staff at different locations | Being flexible in terms of how programs were held accountable; exhibiting patience, and offering space for partnerships to develop at the speed in which trust, evolving capacity, and systems were built and cultivated |
Youth recruitment | Encourage younger participating students to bring their friends and spread the word about the engineering programming; older youth recruitment utilized word of mouth, morning high school announcements, flyers, and social media posts |
As Nebraska continues to build the near-peer mentorship model, they maintain a commitment to continuous iteration and improvement. As part of our joint exploration of the near-peer mentorship model, Alison introduced us to Ann O’Connor, Project Manager at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and 4-H Extension Agent, who has been key to driving the training and implementation of the near peer mentorship work. Ann leads several different STEM-related grant-funded projects for Beyond School Bells and in the near-peer mentorship work, she emphasized the importance of continuing to keep the training relevant for youth mentors. She spoke about building capacity through high quality training for college and high school mentors. Training must include both subject content and coaching in youth development––for example, “this is how you explain engineering, this is how you talk about an engineering mindset.” In one of the trainings Ann leads, they intentionally pair youth together, matching those who had experiences mentoring and teaching with those who did not yet have similar experience. This proved to be a great way of sharing experiences and teaching the mentors through the intentional pairings.
Continuing to design for sustainability is an important part of Nebraska’s overall network strategy––they continue to evaluate their models, build from what is working, and deepen relationships with key partners and individuals that do great work for supporting STEM interests of young people. For the future, Beyond School Bells will continue to use its Engineering Pathways program foundations to support a new workforce pathways project supported with an investment through the Department of Labor and the STEM Next Opportunity Fund, called Exploring Career Connections. Within this project, they will continue the college mentor model at the request of afterschool program staff due to its utility in engaging and preparing the high school leaders for facilitating STEM activities with younger youth and also providing a space for them to learn more about postsecondary opportunities and what college is like.
Overall, Beyond School Bells works to support sustainability by building strong relationships with their program partners, being flexible in terms of program implementation timelines and accountability structures. The network also emphasized the importance of programs directly connecting with youth and near-peer mentors, utilizing word-of-mouth recruitment methods. Alison also spoke to the need to align projects to meet national and state level directives and investment areas as a sustainability strategy. In terms of supporting goals of continuous improvement, BSB and its partners made reflective practice part of their strategy. Ann explained that she believed that part of the success of the project is in “the process, learning along the way.” Ann described the mentorship training as a “cycle of continuous feedback” in which they ask “lots of questions” and are able to adapt their training accordingly. Additionally, they keep the lines of communication open between the network and folks implementing the programming.
Beyond School Bells (2025a). Beyond School Bells-Nebraska Children.
https://beyondschoolbells.org/about/index.html
Beyond School Bells (2025b). Think-Make-Create (TMC) Labs.
https://beyondschoolbells.org/mobile-maker-space/about-tmc-labs.html
Dahn, M., & Peppler, K. (2021). The Malone Center and The Career Academy (TCA): Peer brokering of opportunities across settings. Connected Learning Lab. https://connectedlearning.uci.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Case-Study-4-If-Were-NotPaying-Them-Were-Not-Going-to-Get-Them_final.pdf
STEM Next and the Connected Learning Lab at UCI have partnered to support state and regional out of school networks as they develop and strengthen an ecological and connected approach to STEM learning. The case studies series represent real world examples that are part of a larger effort to develop and improve connection strategies that strengthen STEM learning ecosystems, centering the experiences, mobility, and futures of individual learners and their families across state and regional networks.
For more information on the project and the strategies, visit https://stemnext.org/stem-pathways and connectedlearning.uci.edu/projects/making-connections/
