Communities In Schools believes that caring, one-on-one relationships between adults and young people make the crucial difference. Programs don’t change kids – relationships do. CIS creates comprehensive, locally controlled and owned support systems around schools. In partnership with the local school system, CIS identifies the most critical needs of students and families – needs that are preventing children from succeeding in school, and in life. CIS then locates and coordinates community resources, dedicated volunteers and agencies to serve in partnership with the public schools, both during the day and after school, thereby making the work of our educators much more effective. Thus, coordination of effort and accountability for results are essential aspects of the service CIS provides – because, too often, well-meaning programs are not focused on overall school objectives. CIS ensures that the work of these outside agencies and volunteers is interconnected and integrated to provide the support schools need the most.

Consider the many scenarios that play out every day in this country — and a few, real examples of the solutions offered by CIS to an individual student, a targeted student population or an entire school:

A seventh grader in Kansas starts skipping school for no apparent reason. The local CIS site coordinator, working with the school staff, comes to recognize that the truancy is caused by conflicts with other students. The site coordinator matches the student with a mentor from a partnering organization. Together, the mentor and student work to resolve the conflicts; the student begins attending school again, becoming more motivated and making good academic progress.

In a school district outside of Las Vegas, where the vast majority of students and their families live in poverty and/or are homeless, the free or reduced-price lunches kids receive at school may be their only meal of the day. CIS receives a donation of several hundred backpacks, and partners with a local food bank to start a backpack-to-go program at a school, ensuring that all students go home every Friday with a backpack full of convenient, nutritious food for their entire family. When families receive that kind of support from a school, they’ll make an effort to keep their kids in the school.

Near Athens, Georgia, high school students who were languishing in mainstream classrooms experience academic success at a CIS Performance Learning Center® (PLC), a small, non-traditional high school that offers a low student-to-teacher ratio, a personalized learning approach, high academic standards, and a flexible schedule with meaningful community involvement. Some of the students had already dropped out of school before finding their way back to the PLC. Throughout Georgia, the birthplace of the PLC model, PLC students started the 2005-2006 school year with an academic average of 67.7 percent or the equivalent of a D. By the end of the year, those same students were averaging an 82.1 or the equivalent of a B. CIS is expanding the PLC model across its network to ensure that more students have the opportunity to graduate from high school ready for college and career success.

When young people are engaged in school and exposed to potential workforce experiences (career clubs, internships), they begin to see that they have choices. When there are caring, supportive adults in their lives, kids are motivated to do well in school and achieve their dreams. This is the goal of CIS — to ensure that all young people get what they need to succeed in school and in life.