Bringing the Band Back Together: Communities In Schools Legacy Event in Partnership with Creative Arts Agency
Wednesday, February 18, marked an unforgettable evening at Creative Artists Agency's (CAA) offices in Los Angeles. Communities In Schools® (CIS®), the nation’s leading provider in integrated student supports, gathered its community — educators, alumni, advocates, board members, funders, and champions — to celebrate five decades of impact and to look ahead toward the next 50 years with renewed commitment and purpose.
CAA, a longtime supporter and partner of CIS, provided the perfect setting for the evening’s celebration of the past and a look towards the future. The event, titled “Bringing the Band Back Together,” was more than a reunion. It was an invitation — extended beyond the CIS family to new voices, new partners, and prospective supporters — to hear firsthand the stories behind one of America's leading student-support organizations and to feel called to join its ongoing work.
Fittingly, the evening's run of show was designed like a symphony with four distinct acts tracing CIS' evolution from its founding notes to the crescendo of what comes next. The event began with a video highlighting the history of Communities In Schools. Emceed by Lenny Stern, CIS National Board Member, the night unfolded with the care and intention that has always defined the organization's work.
Act I: Finding Our Sound
The evening opened with remarks from Lenny Stern and Richard Lovett, Co-Chairman, CAA, who set the tone for a night rooted in gratitude and shared purpose. Then came the voices that first helped shape the sound of CIS — Jim Chambers, CIS National Board Member; Rob Light, Managing Director, CAA; and Ray Chambers, former National Board Member — who offered reflections on the organization's origins, the vision of its founders Bill Milliken and Neil Shorthouse that drove its earliest days, and the enduring belief that every young person deserves a caring adult in their corner so that each one of them, regardless of the zip code they were born into, could achieve their full potential.
Their words reminded the room that CIS was never built on programs alone. It was built on relationships — one student, one school, one community at a time. The presence of a caring adult, also known as a CIS site coordinator is at the heart of the CIS model. Site coordinators, serve as mentors and advocates, connecting students to the resources and supports they need to thrive in school.
We get this opportunity to celebrate, and we are celebrating Communities In Schools...We’re celebrating this precious moment, where this group that means so much to one another, is here. This group, the reunion, the band is back together.
-Richard Lovett, Co-Chairman, CAA
Act II: Momentum and Impact
The second act brought the present into sharp, hopeful focus. Jim Shelton, Chief Executive Officer, Blue Meridian Partners, spoke to the systems and strategies that have allowed CIS to scale its reach without losing the human touch at the heart of its model. Attendees viewed CIS’ documentary, The Push, which follows the inspirational relationship between Darrell Smith, a caring CIS site coordinator, and Ja-Mez, a graduating high school senior. But the most moving moment belonged to Selena Juarez, a CIS alumna, and member of the CISLA board of directors whose story embodied everything the organization strives to make possible.
I invite you all to take a moment to reflect and remember what it is that brought you here tonight. Whether you’re a site coordinator...a community advocate...a generous funder...or because you want to learn more. We need you to help us get through the years to come and to ensure Bill Milliken’s dream and vision continues to live beyond all of us. The future of CIS is all of us coming together as a community so let’s celebrate the next 50 years by being present.
-Selena Juarez, CIS Alumna
Selena's voice carried the weight and warmth of lived experience — a reminder that behind every statistic is a student who needed someone to believe in them and found exactly that through CIS.
Act III: Resilience
The third act was a testament to perseverance. Arne Duncan, CIS National Board Member and former U.S. Secretary of Education, offered a powerful account of his personal experience working with CIS as an education administrator in Chicago public schools. Arne also reflected on what it takes to sustain meaningful change in the face of shifting political landscapes, resource constraints, and systemic inequity. His remarks underscored a truth that CIS has lived for half a century: resilience is not the absence of hardship — it's the decision to keep going anyway.
Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft Executive and Founder of Ballmer Group — a longtime supporter of Communities In Schools, added his voice to the act, speaking to the power of data-driven commitment and the kind of bold investment that transforms good intentions into generational change. And in a moment that brought the room to its feet, a video message from Shaquille O'Neal, four-time NBA champion and CIS National Board Member, delivered warmth, humor, and an unmistakable authenticity — a reminder that the CIS community spans every corner of American life.
Act IV: The Next 50
The final act belonged to the future. Rey Saldaña, President and CEO of CIS National, and Donna Weiss, National Board Chair, closed the evening with remarks that looked boldly ahead to the organization's 50th anniversary in 2027 and the chapters still unwritten.
Communities In Schools is not just a program, it’s a promise. A promise that no student has to navigate the world alone. 2 million students a year and 50 million students over the lifetime of this organization. I want you to imagine 50 million students, like Selena Juarez [our alumna here tonight], that’s what this organization has helped create.
-Donna Weiss, National Board Chair, Communities In Schools
They spoke not only of what CIS has accomplished, but of what remains possible — and of the fundamental belief that drives everything: that every student, no matter their zip code or circumstance, deserves someone who sees their potential and refuses to let it go to waste.
We are living in history right now. I think about what it means to look at an organization that has been built over five decades, and I think about my father, who said the best time to plant an oak tree is 50 years ago, the second-best time is now. We believe that societies grow when we plant trees, whose shade we may never sit in. And when you think about the seeds that were planted in 1977 there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
-Rey Saldaña, President and CEO, Communities In Schools
As the evening drew to a close, one message rang clear across the room: the band is back together — and they're just getting started. As CIS approaches its 50th anniversary, every caring adult has a role to play. One relationship, one student, one community at a time. Together we can transform the lives of not only the millions of students we reach each year but create true generational systemic change.
