Communities In Schools of Washington News

A High School Student’s Reflections on Mentoring: Lessons Shared

ciswashingtonnews — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:34:23 +0000

By Cori Uddenberg, Volunteer, Communities In Schools of Peninsula

Pencil to paper, marker to dry erase board, finger to calculator. The medium changes constantly. Never the same in process but always the same in answer: math. I teach her how to add mixed numbers, divide decimals. She teaches me to love the life I have. I teach her to subtract fractions, multiply three-digit numbers. She teaches me to utilize my power to change my world and myself. We teach each other, because life, I have learned, is like math. Search long enough, try hard enough, risk enough, and the answer can be found. Life is not always easy. Neither is math. But I have found that those twists and turns along the way have just been life going absolutely perfectly.

I did not have this epiphany on my own. I did not wake up one morning with a greater understanding of my life than I had the day before. I did not open my mind to reason in just one day. A seventh grade girl did all of that for me. We met through the Communities In Schools of Peninsula program, which connected struggling students to willing mentors. During the fall of my junior year I decided to become a middle school math mentor. But, after eight months, I realized that I was not the only teacher.

I remember my first day tutoring. I remember walking into the library, one of the last to arrive, and the loud rattling noises the door made as it eased shut. I remember looking around at the brown circular tables, full of students with mentors decades older, and decades more experienced, than I. I remember finding my name written in permanent ink on a piece of 8 by 11 printer paper, put haphazardly on the table next to a seventh grade girl. She did not look like I had imagined she would. Her light blonde hair had been dyed black and she was wearing sweats, a sweatshirt, and a pair of vans. I am not going to say I did not judge her or expect her to be a lost cause. To say I did not would be a lie, because I did judge her. And I regret having done so.

I regret judging her because I was wrong.

Life had not been kind to her. She rarely saw her dad. She was moving across the country in less than a year. She was less intelligent than her younger brother. From where I sat, her life appeared to be an uphill battle. From where I sat, her life appeared to be one problem after another. But she never saw life that way. She chose to focus on the times she did see her dad, the fact that a new state meant new opportunities, and that less intelligent in math did not mean she was lesser than her brother. Because she chose optimism, she taught me to choose optimism too.

I realized that life rarely, if ever, follows the plans I had hoped it would. My parents may not be married anymore, my sister/best friend may be leaving for college in the fall, and my brother may be impermeable to my advice. But I do not fight those battles everyday. And, even if I had to fight every day, the little, wonderful moments I have every day are enough to make my life beautiful. The little moments, like throwing sand dollars on the beach for my dog, watching my friends skate board after having a mud fight on the beach, and being given a flower from an adorable five-year-old boy, are what really count. After all, life is what happens when we are busy making other plans. Good things happen everyday. Before Communities In Schools of Peninsula, I just wasn’t seeing them. But now, I could not miss them even if I tried.

Cori originally wrote this essay for her high school Advanced Placement Comp and Language class June 6, 2011.

President Obama Proclaims January as National Mentoring Month – You Can Become a Communities In Schools Mentor

ciswashingtonnews — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:38:32 +0000

Excerpted from NMM news release | Posted: January 5, 2012

January 3, 2012: President Barack Obama has issued a proclamation designating January as National Mentoring Month, saying, “Every day, mentors help young Americans face the challenges of growing into adulthood. By setting a positive example and sharing their time, knowledge and experience, mentors play an essential role in preparing our Nation’s youth for a bright future. During National Mentoring Month, we celebrate the contributions of all those who cultivate a supportive environment for the next generation, and we recommit to expanding mentorship opportunities across our country.”

January 2012 marks the 11th anniversary of National Mentoring Month, an annual media campaign to recruit volunteer mentors for young people. Spearheaded by the Harvard Mentoring Project of the Harvard School of Public Health, MENTOR and the Corporation for National and Community Service, this year’s campaign tagline is Invest in the Future. Mentor a Child.

Mentors, backed by quality mentoring programs, play a powerful role in preventing substance abuse and youth violence, as well as boosting academic achievement and workforce readiness. Studies have shown a more than 250 percent return on a $1 investment in mentoring and a myriad of quality of life benefits to the mentor, too. Mentors help build young people’s character and confidence, expand their universe and help them navigate pathways to successful adulthood. Despite this proven impact, the gap between the number of mentors and the number of young people who need a mentor is still too large. While three million young people have a mentor, 15 million need a caring adult mentor in their lives.

Communities In Schools of Washington counts on mentors to provide guidance and encouragement to hundreds of students statewide each year. Mentoring takes just one hour, one day a week, but the investment in each child extends well beyond–and many times means the difference between that young person veering off track or going on to achieve in life. For more information about how you can become a Communities In Schools mentor, visit our website.

Breaking the cycle

ciswashingtonnews — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:45:36 +0000

Author: Briana Kerensky, Online Communications Specialist, Communities In Schools National Office

While we have all experienced the effects of our country’s economic downturn in one way or another, a new Census Bureau report released Tuesday delivered a shock to the system with the statistic that 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty last year—nearly one in six people.

Sadly, many of these people are children. As parents lose their jobs or take severe pay cuts, their sons and daughters go without food, clean clothes and sometime even a home.

The Washington Post put it bluntly: “The economic turmoil has pummeled children, for whom the poverty rate last year — 22 percent — was at the highest level since 1993.”

Communities In Schools site coordinators work tirelessly across the nation to help young victims of the recession. Whether it’s organizing food backpack programs to make sure children have enough to eat, or partnering with doctors and health clinics to provide free screenings and treatment, our unsung heroes do everything they can to help children survive and thrive.

But our resources aren’t only for helping students in the now. We are also dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty and giving children a shot at a better, brighter future.

Communities In Schools evolved its successful model of integrated student services from the Five Basics, which have guided our work from the beginning. The Five Basics are a set of essentials that every child needs and deserves. One of these is “A marketable skill to use upon graduation.” Communities In Schools site coordinators don’t leave a student’s life once the student is on track to getting a high school diploma. Our site coordinators take students on college tours, and help them with college applications and obtaining financial assistance. They also help students prepare resumes, and apply to jobs and trade schools.

Take Rasheedah Phillips, for instance. At 14, she was pregnant and felt directionless. Communities In Schools of Philadelphia made sure she had adequate services that she needed right away, such as food and prenatal health care. But they also connected the teen to a program that helped prepare her for life as a young adult and parent. And ultimately, this enabled her pursue her chosen career. Now 27, Rasheedah is a graduate of Temple University’s Beasley School of Law and a successful lawyer.

Rasheedah Phillips

“The Communities In Schools counselors were very instrumental in helping me,” she said. “They recognized my abilities and encouraged me – they didn’t let me quit.”

Communities In Schools’ mission is to help kids succeed in school and achieve in life. As more children are forced to deal with poverty, Communities In Schools will be there to answer the call and provide immediate aid. But we are also looking toward the future by equipping students with our most valuable resources: the tools and the hope for a better tomorrow.

Communities In Schools recognized as 2011 Top Nonprofit

ciswashingtonnews — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:31:08 +0000

Author: Cindy Nixon, PR/Marketing Manager, Communities In Schools National Office

Philanthropedia.

Once I could get around to pronouncing it, I took a minute to think about what being recognized as a “2011 Top Nonprofit” by this organization could mean to Communities In Schools. So I edged closer to the computer and did some research. A quick Google search allowed me to learn that Philanthropedia’s mission is to “improve nonprofit effectiveness by directing money to and facilitating discussion about expert-recommended, high-impact nonprofits.”

In layman’s terms, they’re trying to give potential donors an idea of worthy causes to which they can give money. By delving a little deeper into their site, I also learned that Philanthropedia was acquired by GuideStar earlier this year. As the industry leader in nonprofit data, GuideStar has an audience in the millions – professionals, funders, advisers and other individuals. Not too shabby if you ask me!

In the less than two years I have served as Manager of Public Relations and Marketing, I’ve seen Communities In Schools gain recognition from Charity Navigator and now Philanthropedia. That’s one new major recognition per year. If I were a baseball player, I’d be hitting .1000, once again not too bad. Not to mention, we’re also fully accredited by the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance.

At Communities In Schools I am honored to work with a group of passionate individuals who truly care about giving the children we serve a better chance at life. But if we lack the proven evidence to back us up then we aren’t left with much. That’s why getting ourselves on the radar of such well-known evaluators is so crucial to helping us accomplish our mission. There are many worthy causes out there, so the challenge we are constantly tasked with is coming up with new ways to make our organization stand out. And this latest recommendation is one way we can go about doing just that. So while I may still be mispronouncing their name, at least I now understand how important Philanthropedia’s recommendation is to the future of Communities In Schools. And that’s good enough for me.

Check out our profile on Philanthropedia’s website.

Family: the Keystone to Success

ciswashingtonnews — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 19:49:47 +0000

Today’s post comes from the National Office of Communities In Schools.

When a youth is in need of help, Communities In Schools builds a team of compassionate professionals in order to surround him or her with a community of support. Site coordinators, mentors, tutors, healthcare providers, social workers, and other people are on-hand 24/7 to give them everything they need to succeed in school and achieve in life.

But there’s one group considered to be the keystone in a child’s community of support: family.

A student can receive countless resources from Communities In Schools, but the uphill climb towards graduation becomes a lot steeper without a parent or guardian to provide unconditional love and positive reinforcement. Which is why we were so excited to learn about the new data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent Survey of Income and Program Participation, which shows that more low-income parents than ever are becoming invested in their children’s academic success.

Sheila Smith, the early-childhood director for the New York City-based National Center for Children in Poverty, said in an Education Week article that the new data are an optimistic surprise.

“We might almost expect the opposite trend because of the economic pressures,” she said. “When parents are under greater economic pressure, they may have less time and be under more stress and risk of depression.”

The data, which come from interviews with a nationally representative sample of more than 42,000 households in 2009, revealed that children are spending more time with their parents than they did in 1998. This includes important social and academic development activities such as reading together, eating dinner together, and play time.

In addition, the Census Bureau found that more parents are not only wanting, but expecting, their sons and daughters to graduate from high school and college. While fewer than half of low-income parents in 1998 expected their children to attain an Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree, in 2009, 54 percent expected to see their children academically succeed.

Echoing the Census Bureau’s hopeful data, last yea r more than 200,000 parents, families and guardians of the students served participated in their children’s education through opportunities provided by Communities In Schools. That includes everything from group counseling to participating in after-school activities and bonding events. We work with families as much and as often as possible to make sure that the children we support are getting all the TLC they require, both in the classroom and in the home.

The resources and support Communities In Schools provides to students are extremely important, but the love of a parent or guardian is always priceless.

Dropping Out – Still Relevant After All These Years

ciswashingtonnews — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:38:25 +0000

Today’s post, by Tracey Savell Reavis, is from the CIS National Office Blog.

Last week I tuned in to NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” and their special series, Dropping Out, A Life-Changing Decision. They opened with an alarming statistic – of the nearly 4 million kids who start ninth grade every year, 1 in 4 will not graduate. There was talk about programs that provide course work and career counseling specifically for dropouts. And about how to involve parents in helping students go back to school. And as I listened and shook my head at the information, I remembered the original thought I’m embarrassed to say I’d had when I first joined Communities In Schools: How relevant of an issue is the dropout crisis today?

It’s not as if I’d been living under a rock (or without an Internet connection). It’s just that in an economy where people with Master’s degrees are taking no-and low-paying internships, and retired executives are working at fast-food restaurants, I somehow felt surely, by now, everyone knew you couldn’t get anywhere without a high school diploma. But without that high school diploma, there’s not likely to be a college degree or an executive title. In the NPR series, we met four young people for whom the dropout issue is something they are dealing with now.

I’m not sure which of the dropouts profiled had it worse: The young woman who was a teen mom, now raising two children and determined to break the dropout cycle within her own family. Or the 19-year-old who, instead of having a high school diploma, already has a criminal record and limited employment prospects. Or the 44-year-old man who can’t even apply for better paying jobs, and admits that dropping out of school was the biggest mistake he’d ever made. As the dropout data suggests, the decision to leave school can have an impact that lasts for years.

NPR also declared that of all the problems with the American education system, the dropout crisis was the most urgent. Here’s another stat – 97 percent of students helped by Communities In Schools stay in school. Unlike dropout rescue programs, designed to help students after they’ve hit rock bottom, Communities In Schools surrounds students with a community of support to ensure they stay in school. Our model of integrated services addresses the academic and human service needs of students. And a five-year, independent evaluation concluded that Communities In Schools is the only organization proven to both increase graduation rates and lower dropout rates.

With the start of the new school year just weeks away, we are reminded that thousands of young people still need our help. I’m certain there’s a good reason NPR brought attention to this crisis. And I’m convinced the work we do at Communities In Schools to help students achieve their full potential and graduate is more relevant today than ever.