Tag Archives: Communities In Schools

by | January 30, 2013 · 8:24 PM

Communities In Schools Releases New Video Highlighting the National Dropout Problem

Arlington, VA (PRWEB) — Communities In Schools, the leading organization dedicated to empowering students to stay in school and achieve in life, is proud to announce the release of its new video “Making a Difference.” The video, produced by Long Story Short Media, illustrates the ways in which Communities In Schools is making a difference in the lives of 1.25 million children each year.

The production company traveled across the country to several different Communities In Schools affiliates in order to tell the story from a variety of perspectives. A collection of viewpoints are heard in the video, from the voice of Communities In Schools President Daniel Cardinali to site coordinators working on the ground floor to the students being directly impacted by the organization.

“We’re privileged to work with organizations like Communities In Schools to document how they are moving the needle and improving outcomes in our education system,” said Jessica Stuart, founder of Long Story Short Media. “It was clear to us that they know what it takes to help solve America’s dropout crisis, and to put at-risk kids back on track to graduate.”

“Making a Difference” details the ways in which Communities In Schools tends to the non-academic barriers that often prevent students from staying in school and achieving in life. The video also touches upon the sound financial investment that Communities In Schools is, returning $11.60 on average for every dollar invested.

“The most powerful advocates for our work are our site coordinators and the students they serve,” said Debra Montanino, Chief Development Officer for Communities In Schools. “Through showcasing their voices and experiences, we hope to inspire our friends, donors and other stakeholders to take action and make a difference in these students’ lives.”

The Communities In Schools national office debuted “Making a Difference” January 23rd at an event held in Los Angeles for potential donors.

To watch the video and see how you can make a difference, visit http://www.communitiesinschools.org. To learn more about Long Story Short Media, visit http://www.lssmedia.com.

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by | September 21, 2012 · 3:51 AM

Communities In Schools to Participate in First-Ever AMERICAN GRADUATE DAY September 22, 2012

Multi-platform Event Features Local and National Programming, Partners, and Celebrities
Focused on Improving High School Graduation Rates in America

New York, NY, –Communities In Schools announced today that it will be one of more than 20 organizations  across the country participating in American Graduate Day on Saturday, September 22, 2012. Presented by WNET New York Public Media and Public Radio Exchange (PRX), American Graduate Day is a multi-platform event featuring a live television broadcast, radio playlist with premiere documentaries, and participation from national partner organizations, celebrities and athletes to spotlight solutions to the nation’s dropout crisis in which one in four students do not finish high school.  American Graduate Day is part of the public media initiative, American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen, made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

“As part of American Graduate Day, public television and radio stations are working in their local communities to help people understand the impact of the dropout crisis and create champions from the community to help students stay on the path to a high school diploma,” said Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of CPB. “American Graduate Day will use all of public media’s platforms – on-air, online and in the community – to tell this story and focus on local organizations and community responses that are working through parents, teachers, students, and business and community leaders to make a difference in the lives of these young people.”

In a segment moderated by ABC News Correspondent JuJu Chang, WNET will showcase Communities In Schools and the work it is doing on a community level to help students stay on track to graduate.  The following individuals will participate in the live segment, highlighting the ways Communities In Schools surrounds students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life.

  •  Communities In Schools President Dan Cardinali
  •  Communities In Schools Board Chairman Elaine Wynn
  •  Communities In Schools of Philadelphia Alumna Rasheedah Phillips
  •  Communities In Schools of the Charleston Area Site Coordinator Jean Rebecca

With special guests including PBS NewsHour senior correspondent Ray Suarez, the national television broadcast will air live on public television stations from the Tisch WNET Studios at Lincoln Center from 1:00 to 8:00 p.m. EST on Sept. 22 (check local listings) and the Communities In Schools segment will air starting at 4:30 p.m. EST.  Public television stations representing more than 50 percent of U.S. households will broadcast American Graduate Day with many including local content alongside the national features.

“We are honored to partner with American Graduate Day to raise awareness of a crisis that is affecting so many of our nation’s young people,” said Dan Cardinali, president of Communities In Schools.  “Through this partnership, we look forward to educating more Americans on the proven solutions available to communities across the nation.”

Viewers will be able to participate in the broadcast by asking questions and sharing ideas before and during the broadcast on Twitter using the #AmGrad hashtag and on Facebook. Those interested in becoming an American Graduate Champion can also call in at 800-313-2477or log on to AmericanGraduate.org to find out more about the national and regional organizations and how to help in their hometowns.

Among the national organizations that will participate in the broadcast are After School All-Stars, America SCORES, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, buildOn, CFY, City Year, Communities in Schools, Girls Inc., Harlem RBI, Horizons National, Jumpstart, Little Kids Rock, NYC Mayor’s Interagency Task Force on Truancy, Chronic Absenteeism and School Engagement, NAACP, National Council of La Raza, Reel Works Teen Film Making, United Way, YouthBuild and the YMCA of the USA.

Following American Graduate Day, the focus on education will continue throughout the week.  Programming on the PBS NewsHour willfeature several American Graduate Day segments, including a panel discussion and a segment about the challenges of keeping Williston, North Dakota students in school as their area struggles with an oil boom. The documentaryFRONTLINE Dropout Nation will air on September 25, and the World Channel is producing a week of education programming inspired by American Graduate Day. Public radio stations will continue their broadcasts from the PRX American Graduate Day Playlist throughout the week as well.

American Graduate: Let’s Make it Happen is helping local communities identify and implement solutions to the high school dropout crisis. American Graduate Day demonstrates public media’s commitment to education and its deep roots in every community it serves. Beyond providing programming that educates, informs and inspires, public radio and television stations – locally owned and operated – are an important resource in helping to address critical issues, such as the dropout rate.

In addition to national programming, more than 75 public radio and television stations have launched on-the-ground efforts working with communities and at-risk youth to keep students on-track to high school graduation. More than 800 partnerships have been formed locally through American Graduate Day, and CPB is working with Alma and Colin Powell’s America’s Promise Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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by | July 18, 2012 · 4:04 PM

Communities In Schools Teams with Procter & Gamble to Raise Awareness of the Dropout Crisis

While many new high school graduates are enjoying summer break and preparing for their next big step, millions of young people across America are struggling to figure out what’s next since they didn’t receive their diploma on time.

The stark reality is: every 26 seconds, a young person drops out of high school in the U.S. Looking at it another way: about a third of high school students nationwide don’t graduate with their classmates. No matter how you do the math, those are figures that need to change.

This summer, Communities In Schools is proud to partner with Procter & Gamble’s GIVE Education, a social sustainability program dedicated to raising awareness of the dropout crisis and helping our organization get the resources it needs to keep students on track to graduate.

Here’s how you can help Communities In Schools and GIVE Education support students at risk of dropping out:

  • LIKE the GIVE Education Facebook page. Every new LIKE will trigger a $1 donation to Communities In Schools (up to $10,000). Here, you can also read real-life success stories from students who overcame major obstacles to graduate high school with the help of Communities In Schools.
  • P&G will launch a unique rebate program on Sunday, August 12. With every purchase of $25 worth of P&G products, shoppers will receive a $5 rebate, and P&G will also donate $5 to Communities In Schools.
  • Keep an eye out for the P&G brandSAVER coupon booklet available Sunday, August 26, as an insert in newspapers across the country. Simply clip the coupons, shop for P&G products, and you’ll be supporting Communities In Schools. For every GIVE Education brandSAVER coupon redeemed, P&G will donate two cents to Communities In Schools.

Of course you’ll want to watch for news about the Los Angeles launch of the Communities In Schools + P&G GIVE Education partnership in early August. We are really excited about our celebrity spokesperson! Stay tuned…

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by | June 7, 2012 · 4:17 PM

The Gift of Connection

This post from Dan Cardinali, president of Communities In Schools, originally appeared in The Huffington Post on June 1, 2012.

Bill Milliken’s feet sat comfortably atop his desk as we chatted that sunny September afternoon in 1999. It was the last of eight interviews and I was more fatigued than anything else as he began to probe. Then, as now, his abiding concern was to understand what was important to me, what motivated me and how I believed the world should be. If I were to come to Communities In Schools (CIS) to run its field operations, he wanted to make sure I understood and aligned with CIS’ vision, values and purpose in the world. Once he discovered that we shared common experiences of living in and serving poor communities, and did so within the context of faith communities, he refocused the interview and began regaling me with CIS’ history. By the end of that hour, Bill had artfully rewoven our respective histories to make it clear that CIS was the logical place for me to continue my (or was it our?) commitment to both direct service and social justice. I must say he was quite right; I have had the pleasure of serving the organization for the last 13 years, and I am a better person for having done so.

Over the years since then, I’ve observed Bill’s unique ability for discovering connectedness and solidarity with those around him. It is almost sport for him, but it is one of the most powerful gifts I have ever observed in someone: that rare combination of deep optimism coupled with an indefatigable probing and tracking of another’s narrative to find common ground and common experience. Once he’s got the connection, the sheer force of his personality drives you and him towards pooling talents and resources to serving poor youth and families and, in doing so, rebuilding disenfranchised communities. This has helped power the CIS movement over the last 50 years, enabling it to attract tens of thousands of volunteers who, together with CIS professional staff, serve more than 1.25 million students and 250,000 parents and families every year.

On June 1, Bill will release his fourth book, From the Rear View Mirror: Reflecting on Connecting the Dots, published by Hay House.

In this memoir, Bill opens up his personal narrative, laying it out for others to join and make of it what each of us will. He does so with clarity, humor and raw honesty, and always through the colorful lens of a gifted storyteller. For those of us who know Bill well, we know that this is a supreme act of courage for one who’s greatest gift has also been a powerful defense.

Bill’s life did not start out easily. Despite his upper middle class background, his family’s struggles with alcoholism and his nonstandard learning style alienated Bill early in life from his family, school and community. As a result, he developed an unusual ability to build a community among those on the fringes and toggle between them and his family’s mainstream life. Bill’s capacity to live between worlds would enable him throughout his life to locate the marginal places in individuals he’d meet, communities in which he’d work and, eventually, public systems in which he’d work that purported to improve the lives of those most in need. Indeed, this gift would be embedded in CIS’ very DNA.

In his late teens, Bill had two transformative experiences. First, a street worker from the Young Life Movement met Bill where he was — at that particular point in time it was a pool hall where Bill no doubt was working an angle. As you will read, this loving relationship sired in Bill’s mind that caring adults can unleash the extraordinary positive potential in a young person — particularly a young person on the road to disaster. Second, as Bill began his process of shifting his life from destructive behavior to service, he had a transformative religious experience. This religious experience would guide and ground Bill for the rest of his life.

In From the Rear View Mirror: Reflecting on Connecting the Dots, we are treated to the deeply personal, sometimes painful and often humorous life of Bill Milliken as he comes of age and collects a group of leaders who eventually establish Communities In Schools. Those who know CIS are given a rare insight into the mosaic of Bill’s life experiences that have contributed so profoundly to CIS’ mission, vision and organizational structure. For anyone who has been challenged by living at once rooted in one’s faith and one’s humanity, Bill’s latest book is a powerful opportunity to find hope that we can connect the dots of God’s spirit in our lives, and in doing so, heal the world.

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by | May 23, 2012 · 6:58 PM

Communities In Schools study shows $11 benefit to community for every $1 invested

From Communities In Schools National, Washington, DC

Communities In Schools, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to empowering students to stay in school and achieve in life, released the results of an economic study, conducted by EMSI, one of the nation’s leading economic modeling firms.

The economic model was based on a subset of results form a recent five-year longitudinal national evaluation conducted by another independent research firm, ICF International. That evaluation concluded:

  • Communities In Schools is unique in its ability to reduce dropout rates and increase on-time graduation rates
  • The Communities In Schools model of intensive case management services through site coordinators produces the strongest reduction of dropout rates of any existing fully scaled dropout prevention program that has been evaluated
  • The Communities In Schools model is effective across states, school settings, grade levels, and student ethnicities

“This analysis of the Communities In Schools (CIS) model reminds us that the nation’s students are its best investment, and the best economic stimulus is a high school diploma, ” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. “The return on investment that CIS generates is one that any private sector investor would snap up in a minute.”

Using the dropout and graduation results for the school-level study, and basing their calculations only on those Communities In Schools affiliates working in high schools, EMSI calculated the costs of CIS, including dollars directly invested and the opportunity costs of labor and capital. They then calculated the benefits of the increased high school graduation rates attributed to CIS and the subsequent higher earnings by these graduates, and social and taxpayer savings based on the students’ increased academic achievement.

Among the significant findings of the study are:

  • The average annual rate of return to society is 18.4%
  • The benefit/cost ratio is 11.6, which means that every dollar invested in CIS creates $11.60 of economic benefit for the community
  • High school graduates will be net contributors to their communities for an average of 44 years of their working life, using their increased income to purchase homes and cars, and paying taxes that will support police officers, fire fighters and teachers.

“Our analysis demonstrates that CIS produces meaningful economic and social impacts,” said Tim Nadreau, research economist at EMSI. “The CIS model produces lifetime benefits for students who will earn more, businesses who will have access to a more skilled workforce, and taxpayers who will have both a greater contribution and reduced costs from these graduates.”

“Communities In Schools is proud to be a leader in the emerging field of rigorous return-on-investment studies,” said Dan Cardinali, president of Communities In Schools. “As we continue to build our own evidence base, we look forward to working with other leaders in the sector to refine and perfect ROI calculation so that they can be both a powerful management tool for nonprofits and a strategic investment guide for donors.”

A copy of the full economic impact study is available here.

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by | April 3, 2012 · 7:49 PM

No Cape, but a “Hero” Nonetheless: Xaila Lewis, Rainier Beach High School

They don’t have capes or secret identities. They can’t leap tall buildings or fly. But their hard work and unrelenting passion to help others gives them the power to save the lives of thousands of children across America every day. By providing encouragement, academic support and community resources, these men and women, along with 5,000 other staff members and more than 50,000 volunteers, are our nation’s true heroes. They’re Communities In Schools’ Unsung Heroes.

Meet the six Communities In Schools site coordinators from around the U.S. who were recognized for their outstanding contributions with the 2011 Communities in Schools Unsung Heroes award–including Communities In Schools of Seattle’s own Xaila Lewis from Rainier Beach High School!

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