Ammad Allen, a sophomore at Pittsburgh Oliver High School on the North Side, needed somebody to talk with about grades, careers and relationships.

Nicholas Ranjan, a lawyer at K&L Gates, Downtown, had mentors in college and knew the benefits.

The two connected through a mentoring program at Duquesne University last school year, and Ammad said the experience has helped him focus on his grades and begin planning his own career as a lawyer.

City and county officials would like to see a lot more of that.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, County Executive Dan Onorato and Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt yesterday made what was described as the region's largest-ever call for volunteer mentors.

The goal is to raise hundreds of mentors for sixth-graders in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Officials said the initiative--"Be a 6th Grade Mentor"--will be launched in the fall at the district's eight middle schools. Plans are to expand it later to sixth-graders at K-8 and 6-12 schools.

"We didn't just pick sixth grade out of the sky," Mr. Ravenstahl said.

The school district has identified sixth grade as a key point in a student's life. The student may begin to exhibit behavior or academic problems around this period, but there's still time to straighten him or her out, Mr. Roosevelt said.

In January 2008, the district said it planned to develop "e-portfolios" for all sixth-graders, with the goal of tracking grades and attendance data. Administrators would review the portfolios to make sure students are on course to graduate on time and take advantage of the Pittsburgh Promise college scholarship program. Mr. Roosevelt yesterday said that idea remains in the planning stages.

Mr. Onorato and Mr. Ravenstahl said the mentoring effort dovetails with existing summer job and violence-prevention programs.

"The next logical step in our efforts is mentoring," Mr. Onorato said.

A study in the early 1990s showed that students who participated in the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring program for 18 months were 46 percent less likely to begin using drugs and 52 percent less likely to skip school than peers who weren't in the program. The students hailed from several cities.

Big Brothers Big Sisters cautioned against generalizing its results to other mentoring programs. But those are the kinds of statistics officials would like to see for the sixth-grade program, which was developed by the United Way of Allegheny County, the city-county Pittsburgh Youth Futures Commission and the Mentoring Partnership of Southwestern Pennsylvania.

The new initiative won't affect existing mentoring programs, including the one that brought Ammad and Mr. Ranjan together.

"At first, I didn't think I needed a mentor," Ammad said. He said his discussions with Mr. Ranjan helped him to understand there was "so much I didn't know about what I wanted to do."

Officials said they will recruit mentors from throughout Allegheny County. Volunteers may apply at www.bea6thgradementor.org.

They must commit to the program for at least one year, meeting with their assigned students for 45 minutes a week during the school year and communicating by mail or e-mail during the summer. The district currently has 1,823 sixth-graders.

"Our goal is to raise a mentor for every student who can benefit from a caring relationship with an adult. We don't think that means every student in sixth grade will need a mentor," said Fred Thieman, president of the Buhl Foundation and co-chairman of the Youth Futures Commission.

Mr. Thieman said organizers would seek community, state and federal grants to fund the program, which may cost $500,000 to $1 million a year.

The money would be used to screen prospective mentors, provide training and monitor the relationships The work would be performed by the Mentoring Partnership and other groups with mentoring programs.