Category: Site Coordinator Snapshots


Students from Ettrick Elementary and their mentors from Virginia State University

Students from Ettrick Elementary and their mentors from Virginia State University.

Dedicated. Committed. A strong advocate. Those are just a few ways that Jay Swedenborg, executive director at Communities In Schools of Chesterfield, Va., would describe Kimberly Reynolds, a site coordinator at Ettrick Elementary School.

“I view site coordinators as very high-energy people, and she definitely fits the bill,” said Swedenborg. “She is also a person who is very student-centered, so she is going to do whatever is needed to help students be successful. That’s not just a statement – that’s how she lives out her work.”

This is Reynolds’ fourth year as a site coordinator at Ettrick, a pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade school located in a close-knit community in Chesterfield County. Throughout her tenure, she has worked hard at building trusting relationships with the community’s families, teachers and partner organizations.

One major challenge that Reynolds faces is that even though her students are only in elementary school, they already do not see themselves as college-bound.

“When I would talk to kids and ask, ‘What do you want to do?’ they didn’t say they had goals, dreams or aspirations. It’s not that they aren’t capable, it’s attitudinal. I needed to figure out some way to get them seeing beyond to the future,” the site coordinator said.

In the predominantly African-American community where Ettrick Elementary resides, Reynolds wanted to make sure that her male students had positive black male role models to both connect with and learn from. With those goals in mind, the site coordinator partnered with Virginia State University (VSU) to start a mentoring program. Twelve male and female college students mentor children at the elementary school each week.

The VSU students spend time with their mentees every Monday, and it’s not uncommon for them to spend lunch in the cafeteria with them as well. In return, the elementary school students visit their mentors at VSU, and spend the day with them, attending classes and touring the campus.

“These kids cannot wait for Monday. Some of my other students are coming up to me in the hall asking, ‘Can I have a mentor? How do I get into this program?’ They are talking about it a lot,” said Reynolds.

Through this partnership, the site coordinator said her students are beginning to look at themselves differently. They see college is within their reach and want to come to school. As her elementary school students move on to middle and then high school, Reynolds continues to engage them by asking them to help mentor other elementary school students.

“The mentors have been wonderful,” she said. “And the program will only get better as it grows and expands.”

Frank Hernandez

Site Coordinator Frank Hernandez knows that a key to feeling comfortable in a new place is having a friend.

Communities In Schools of Greater Phoenix, Ariz., Site Coordinator Frank Hernandez is passionate about giving students the opportunity to develop their potential. For the past two years, he has been helping students at Desert View Elementary School succeed inside and outside the classroom by organizing after-school sports camps, food backpack programs and even holiday assistance programs, to make sure families have Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas presents.

But Hernandez was recently presented with a new, unique challenge. Transitional housing was built next to the school last year and the site coordinator was suddenly faced with securing resources for seven children from Kenya, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“The kids had been in refugee camps in their countries,” Hernandez said. “Because of that, it’s like they are starting out brand-new at school, no matter what their age.”

The site coordinator has been working diligently to help the students adjust to their new classroom environment. For instance, a five-year-old from the new housing was recently enrolled at Desert View and was, as Hernandez described, “scared out of his mind.”

“The boy was thrown into school and didn’t know what school was,” he said.

But Hernandez knew that a key to feeling comfortable in a new place is having a friend. The site coordinator connected the young student with some older refugee children who were already familiar with the school’s structure and could relate to the new student’s anxiety. Hernandez let the five-year-old stay in a fourth-grade classroom with a student who could act as a buddy until he felt safe, comfortable and understood how everything at Desert View worked. Then, over a period of two weeks, the site coordinator slowly weaned the five-year-old from the older students’ classroom until he was able to thrive in the kindergarten classroom.

Hernandez has also taken his work with refugee students beyond school hours. The site coordinator has reached out to families and is helping them acclimate to life in Phoenix by connecting them with needed resources such as food, clothing and personal care items.

“I really enjoy being a site coordinator at this school,” Hernandez said. “We have a small school and one of the things I try to do is to create the most positive culture I can, to help people when they’re outside of their comfort zones.”

Site Coordinator MaryAnn Foster (second from left) with students.

“I really believe that it’s a calling to work in this field,” said MaryAnn Foster, who has been a Communities In Schools of Jacksonville site coordinator for the past eight years at the Frank H. Peterson Academies of Technology.

“You have to be passionate about what you do, and you have to support students and their families as a whole,” said Foster. “You need to care not just about their academic life, but their home life, well-being and every other area. There are so many facets to these students and to their families.”

No one student that Foster serves is alike. Whether she is connecting a depressed student with counseling services or serving as a positive role model for a student who is otherwise excelling in school, the site coordinator says her goal is for all her students to not just make it, but thrive, both inside and outside of school.

“We, as site coordinators, are bridging the gap between students, parents and the community to help young people recognize their value, be successful and reach their potential,” she said.

When Foster first met André, she said he was an introverted and sad student who didn’t try to make friends, because he felt like no one would want to be his friend anyway. Having been abandoned as a baby and remembering a lonely childhood, André felt that he had little value and was defined by his past.

Foster said that after Communities In Schools connected the young man with Outward Bound, a leadership-based program, André found what had been missing in his life: a sense of community and belonging.

“Our goal is to have an authentic relationship with students. I think students know if you care or if it’s just a job. It’s really important that students know that we genuinely care for them and are here for them on any given day.”

Now André is an honor roll student, surrounded by friends, and Foster says he gets ahead in class work just so he can come visit her and ask her if she needs any help. Recently, Foster offered André two community service activities to choose between – sorting clothes for needy families or representing Communities In Schools as a leader at a meeting of school system representatives seeking to improve schools and the community. André chose both, a testimony to how far the young man has come.

Foster says that it’s been amazing to see André and other students she has served truly “change their lives and their world for the better.” And each student serves as a reminder of her critical role as a site coordinator in giving students the tools they need to take this transformative journey.

Site Coordinator Snapshots: Compassion for Kids

Katie Keller with students on diabetes walk

Communities In Schools of Greenville County Site Coordinator Katie Keller (right) with students she inspired to participate in a Walk for Diabetes fundraiser.

Communities In Schools of Greenville is the recipient of an AT&T grant, which enables affiliates to hire amazing site coordinators like Katie Keller.

As a former case manager in Greenville County, S.C., Katie Keller worked closely with individuals who had physical and mental disabilities. It helped her acquire a reservoir of compassion, something she’s found to be useful in her job as a Communities In Schools site coordinator. It encouraged her to focus her career on providing others with a better quality of life.

“I learned that people with disabilities are no different from me, and that it is by chance that they are in a particular situation,” said Keller. “We may not look the same, or eat the same foods or dress the same, but there is a thread of commonality that brings us all together. And at Communities In Schools, the commonality is that we all want the kids to succeed. That’s my goal as well.”

Keller landed at Lakeview Middle School, a Communities In Schools of Greenville, S.C. partner school, in the fall of 2010 with lots of ideas on how she could help the students continue to succeed in school. View full article »

Site Coordinator Sonise Carri's honest manner makes her a person that students feel comfortable speaking with.

“Sonise is like a mom to these students. She’ll nag them about their homework, but everyone in the halls is always running up to give her hugs,” said Elizabeth Mejia, executive director of Communities In Schools of Miami.

Sonise Carri has been a site coordinator since 2005, and working with high school students since 2007. She carries an air of authority, but her sincerity and honest manner make her a person that young men and women feel comfortable talking to about their problems. She lets every student know she cares about his or her journey to success.

Although Carri is not shy about initiating relationships with students, she doesn’t need to seek out students who need support; all of the students at Miami Northwestern Senior High know she is there whenever they need her. View full article »