The Diploma Is Just the Beginning

Every year around this time, I think about the students who almost didn't make it across that stage. Not the ones for whom graduation was inevitable – the students whom the system and structures failed to see slipping. 

That's why CIS works inside schools, not around them. Working in more than 3,500 schools nationwide, Communities In Schools connects students with trusted adults, often referred to as site coordinators, who have access to local resources and partners to address local needs. Our coordinators are embedded in the building and in the lives of the school community. They know the students, the families, the teachers. They're the ones who notice when a kid stops coming to school, or starts showing up exhausted, or quietly falls behind. And they're the ones with the community connections to do something about it.   

As Communities In Schools celebrates the Class of 2026, we're sharing a number that deserves attention: 96 percent of CIS seniors graduate or earn a GED, nine percentage points higher than the national graduation rate. But I want to be honest about what that number represents — and what it doesn't. 

A graduation rate is not a story. It's a shorthand for hundreds of thousands of CIS stories, each involving a student who faced something real: chronic absenteeism, housing instability, food insecurity, a mental health crisis, bullying, a family that needed them to work instead of study. Graduation happened because someone — a CIS site coordinator, a teacher, a community partner — decided that student's future was worth fighting for. 

Earlier this year, a groundbreaking study by Opportunity Insights in partnership with Harvard's EdRedesign Lab and Cornell University gave us something we've long worked toward: rigorous, independent evidence that what CIS changes the trajectory of a young person's life. Three or more years of CIS exposure increases high school graduation rates by 5.2 percent — and lifetime earnings by more than $75,000 compared to non-CIS control schools and students. That's not a rounding error. That's a life materially transformed. 

Graduation is about academics, yes — but it's also about having a trusted adult who shows up and walks alongside a young person through every challenge and milestone. This lesson is not captured in a standardized test, but it’s tested every time a young adult remembers what’s possible when someone believe in and supports you.  

The research confirms what our site coordinators have always understood: being present matters. You cannot email a student out of crisis. You cannot automate the conversation that happens when a teenager finally trusts an adult enough to say what's really going on. Relationships are the mechanism of change — and relationships require people, time, and presence. 

Beyond graduation, CIS equips students with the skills and mindsets they need to succeed after high school. Through personalized guidance, CIS helps students navigate college admissions and financial aid, prepare for entrance exams, explore scholarships, and participate in campus visits and mock interviews. Our organization also supports career readiness by helping students identify sustainable career paths and connect with internships and job-shadowing opportunities. 

Here's what I want policymakers, funders, and community leaders to take from this graduation season: the public has long demanded personalized support in school, and research now confirms what effective student support looks like. It is not mysterious. In fact, it is consistent, relational, and long-term. It requires investment not just in programs but in the people who deliver them. 

As the Class of 2026 joins our growing alumni network and steps into their next chapters, they carry with them more than a diploma — they carry the proof that when communities invest in young people and the adults who support them, the returns are generational. 

CIS demonstrates that the American Dream remains possible for every young person. The question now is whether we'll keep investing in what works. The evidence says we should. 

Rey Saldaña is the National President and CEO of Communities In Schools.