Tag Archive: site coordinators


Site Coordinator Snapshots: Making it Count

Filed Under: Site Coordinator Snapshots, Site Coordinators by Tracey Savell Reavis — 1 Comment
August 28, 2012

Site Coordinator Krista Dusek and Manor High School student Jazmine Scott. Photo courtesy P&G.

When Krista Dusek was first hired by Communities In Schools of Central Texas two years ago to be a site coordinator at Manor High School, she was tasked with introducing the work of Communities In Schools to Manor Independent School District. Today, the affiliate has five staff members and two college interns at Manor High supporting 1,200 students.

“The school and the community have seen the results of Communities In Schools being on campus, and of providing such a range of valuable resources,” said Dusek, who is a licensed social worker. “And because of such positive results, the school has applied for funding to keep adding more support.” Communities In Schools now has a presence in two middle schools that feed into Manor High, which makes for an easier transition for the students. Communities In Schools of Central Texas won Community Organization Partner of the Year for the 2011-2012 school year.

Dusek has been involved with counseling and community service since before receiving her undergraduate degree in social work from the University of Hawaii. She’s worked with victims of domestic violence, female offenders and people with addictions. At Communities In Schools, Dusek and her staff have provided 185 students with Level Two services, which are targeted and sustained dropout prevention interventions.

While Dusek’s work at Manor was, in the beginning, about establishing the identity of Communities In Schools – with students, parents, the community and other agencies/organizations in the school district – it is monitoring the relationships she’s since built that remains her focus and priority now.

In addition, Dusek focuses on establishing programs for girls as well as manages a  ninth-grade transition program created by Communities In Schools to help incoming freshmen navigate the sometimes tricky transition from middle to high school. Her other current project, Check & Connect, is an initiative that aims to help students improve their attendance.

Having identified one significant cause for absenteeism, Dusek will address the issue from the point of view of the student.

“When they don’t come in, it’s typically because they don’t feel like they belong,” she says. “But if you check in, and make a point of saying, ‘it’s really good to see you today,’ and ‘I look forward to seeing you tomorrow,’ you can make a connection. If they can make a connection to school, they feel encouraged to come in.”

Dusek absolutely made a significant connection to Jazmine Scott, a student at Manor whose success story is highlighted in the P&G myGIVE campaign. Dusek guided Jazmine through several difficult years, counseling her to manage anger and cope with the death of her grandmother. In doing so, Dusek helped put the onetime at-risk student on the path for college.

It is this chance to have an impact and make a difference in students’ lives that drives Dusek.

“To see them walk across the stage at graduation, like Jazmine did, when they did not know if they would graduate or attend college … that feeling is why I do my job.”

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Partners with a Purpose

Filed Under: Families, Programs by Erica Rafferty — Leave a comment
July 31, 2012
Essary with family and lunch

Communities In Schools of East Texas Site Coordinator Nancy Essary (left) with a church volunteer and children receiving lunch.

The First Baptist Church of Diana wanted to help the students of its small community in Diana, Texas. It was 2007, and one of the parishioners was concerned that the students who participated in meal programs during the school year would go hungry over the summer without the same assistance. Knowing they wanted to do something but needing additional help, they called Nancy Essary, who had just finished her first year as site coordinator for Communities In Schools of East Texas and was rumored to help match community resources to student needs.

“Your phone will ring. There is someone on the other end, and the person either is offering something or need something. And either way works well. What this all boils down to is relationships – having a relationship with another organization that wants to help,” said Essary.

Essary coordinated with the New Diana Independent School District (NDISD) to find students’ addresses and phone numbers, and to get parent permission slips signed. This allowed the church to focus on planning the logistics of purchasing, preparing and delivering lunches. Five days a week for nine weeks, starting the first weekday after school let out and ending the last weekday before school started, church and school staff volunteers delivered lunches across Diana.

Since that fateful phone call five years ago, the site coordinator estimates that this joint partnership has served approximately 7,500 lunches to students.

This past summer, about 75 church members and several school administrators from NDISD joined forces to plan and drop off lunches to nearly 25 students of all ages. Oftentimes, delivering those meals means driving miles from the community center, down unpaved roads and to homes that literally are in the middle of nowhere. Many of the children may see no one else but their family and the volunteers for the entire summer.

For Essary, not only does the summer program give students nourishment, but it also serves as a great opportunity to make sure other student needs are met as well.

“The point is that we are bringing another caring adult into their lives,” she said. “They are hearing another positive voice, and that is just a win-win across the board.”

In the past, there was a donor who bought the lunch meat and bread for the summer program. This year, Essary said most of the food was purchased out of pocket by the church volunteers and school staff.

Despite the shortage in funding, the program never has turned a student away. In fact, when volunteers learn that a family may need more than just lunch delivered, the church finds a way to provide groceries or meals on the weekend, too.

To Nancy Essary, this summer lunch program is a living example of Communities In Schools’ mission to surround students with a community of support.

“This is the true heart of Communities In Schools – partnering with these other organizations. It’s always a team effort, and everyone has the same vision and focus of what will help these students achieve their potential.”

Check out some fantastic photos of Nancy Essary and the lunch program!

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Site Coordinator Snapshots: a Lifetime Commitment

Filed Under: Site Coordinator Snapshots, Site Coordinators by Briana Kerensky — Leave a comment
July 26, 2012

The city of Waco recognized Nola Tatum's work with students by declaring July 15, 2012 as "Nola Tatum Day."

Today’s Site Coordinator Snapshot is by Communities In Schools of the Heart of Texas’ Executive Director Doug McDurham.

In July of 1992, Nola Tatum began her work as the new Communities In Schools site coordinator at Sul Ross Elementary in Waco, Texas. Walking into a complex system that required interacting with lots of different people was initially scary, she said, but she quickly learned the ropes and the importance of building relationships within the school. As the faculty and staff began to understand Ms. Tatum’s role and the unique contributions that she and Communities In Schools brought to their students, a sense of trust and collaboration was firmly established. Helping the children was extremely gratifying, and Ms. Tatum saw her new job as a lifelong dream.

Fast-forward two decades, and Ms.Tatum still believes that being a Communities In Schools site coordinator is her dream. Sul Ross Elementary is a neighborhood school and Ms. Tatum often hits the surrounding streets to track down parents. Whether helping parents locate needed resources, talking to them about their child’s progress or providing information about how to best support their kids, Ms. Tatum is often the connection between parents and the school. In the last few years, many of these parents have come to her, and she recognizes the faces of students she once served. She says that it is an amazing feeling to meet an adult who she knew as a child and to hear the stories of how she helped students become who they are today. She loves seeing the former students as actively engaged parents and watching the chains of generational poverty begin to break.

Communities In Schools of the Heart of Texas recently commemorated Nola Tatum’s 20th anniversary of service at Sul Ross Elementary. Three of the principals who have worked with her over the years showered her with symbolic gifts (super hero T-shirts, flashlights and more) and praise. Proclamations and letters from the Mayor of Waco, the Communities In Schools national and Texas state offices, and the Deputy Commissioner of Education (also a former Sul Ross principal who had worked with Ms. Tatum) rounded out the celebration and left everyone – not just Ms. Tatum – feeling respected and appreciated.

In response to massive education budget cuts in Texas, the Waco Independent School District board of trustees recently voted to merge Sul Ross Elementary with another school. Soon after the official vote, the principal of the “receiving” school contacted me to request that Ms. Tatum join her team. I quickly agreed, assuring her that this was our hope as well. Ms. Tatum simply sees this as the next step in her amazing journey and is ready to embrace the new challenges ahead.

From my office window, I can see the shuttered Sul Ross building and the tree-lined streets that surround it. The kids playing in that neighborhood will soon load up on busses to go to their new school. And I know that they will be all right, because Ms. Tatum will be there by their side.

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Site Coordinator Snapshots: Sharing a Cup of Success

Filed Under: Site Coordinator Snapshots by Tracey Savell Reavis — 2 Comments
July 11, 2012

Site Coordinator Dalisha Phillips at the Stuff the Bus event.

Can a cup of coffee change the course of a student’s life? It can if the person who prepared it is Dalisha Phillips, a site coordinator at Communities In Schools of Seattle. After one of her first jobs, a part-time stint with coffee king Starbucks, Phillips found work that allowed her to teach barista skills to homeless students. Her role with a local nonprofit organization was to teach culinary skills in a classroom setting, and then later supervise the students in a working café. She provided those students with on-the-job training and helped put them in a better position for employment. And it was in doing this work that Phillips found her passion for helping young people.

“I see a lot of myself in the students so I can really relate to them,” said Phillips, who understands what it feels like to not fit into a traditional public school system. She admits to being the class clown in high school, but kept up her grades and eventually was able to enroll in a community college. She then majored in psychology at Carroll College in Montana, and became the first in her family to graduate with a bachelor’s degree.

It was while browsing Craigslist job ads that Phillips came across one for a Communities In Schools site coordinator. “It was a light bulb moment,” she said about reading the job description. “I thought it was a great way to combine my skills and my passion for working with youth.”

In the December of 2009, Phillips landed the job as the site coordinator at an alternative high school. But six months later, the program she was working with lost its funding due to budget cuts.  Then at the start of the 2010-2011 school year, she became the Diplomas Now site coordinator at the Aki Kurose Middle School. Diplomas Now, developed by Communities In Schools, Talent Development at John Hopkins University and City Year, is a school turnaround model designed to address and support the most challenged middle and high schools.

Phillips with a board measuring students' attendance.

At Aki Kurose, Phillips manages a caseload of about 60 students who receive targeted stay-in-school interventions. The Diplomas Now model is focused on attendance, behavior and coursework, and Phillips is making strides with the middle school students in all of those areas. Improvement in attendance has been particularly noteworthy, thanks to a creative initiative Phillips started. She placed a gigantic attendance board by the entrance of the school to serve as a visual for all the students to see what the school is doing about attendance. Aki Kurose beat out 70 other schools to win the national Get Schooled Attendance Challenge for improving their attendance by 3.7 percent in October and November 2011. As a reward, the students were treated to a performance by singer, songwriter and actor Ne-Yo.

Phillips also coordinates the Stuff the Bus campaign – a program started by Communities In Schools of Seattle that she inherited when she arrived at the middle school. She has expanded the annual supply drive over the past two years and the program currently provides for more than 9,500 students in 32 Seattle public schools. In 2011, the drive collected more than 50,500 school supplies and $40,000 worth of furniture donations, and engaged 40 community partners and 121 volunteers.

Phillips said she finds it very rewarding to be an advocate for young people who don’t have that in their lives.

“I know the work we do is tough,” said Phillips. “But on Monday mornings I go straight to the front of the school to greet the kids and give out hugs. I do it to show them there is someone at school who is excited for them to be there.”

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Supporting the Children of Our Troops

Filed Under: Families by Briana Kerensky — 1 Comment
July 3, 2012

More than 25 percent of the students that Site Coordinator Melissa Dunn serves have a parent in the military. An anger management program she runs for boys has many military students. This photo is from a project they did to represent "how not talking about issues makes you feel."

Today’s blog post is by Communities In Schools of the Midlands, S.C., Site Coordinator Melissa Dunn.

While most children associate the Fourth of July with barbeques, fireworks and vacations, many students served by Communities In Schools of the Midlands, S.C., experience a very different reality. More than 25 percent of the students I serve at Muller Road Middle School have a parent employed by the military. These children face an array of unique challenges. As a Communities In Schools site coordinator, it is my job to surround these students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life.

Students who have one or more parents in the military face barriers to success such as high family mobility, family separation and constant transition into new communities and schools. These problems can cause poor academic performance, truancy, a lack of motivation, aggressive behavior, misbehavior or emotional problems. All of that makes it difficult for students to maintain the ABC’s of success: attendance, behavior and course achievement.

So it comes as no surprise when children living in such circumstances face emotional turbulence. They are constantly moving, unable to establish friendships, and changing social and geographical environments. All of this is tough for a young person to deal with. Being separated from a parent and not knowing when, or if, they will come home is difficult for anyone of any age to bear. Many of the military children I have worked with try to cope by using what I like to call, “the bottling it up approach.” They hold everything, all their stresses and fears, really tight inside. They don’t know how to best express their emotions in a healthy manner and don’t know where to turn.

It is crucial as a site coordinator to identify these students, talk to their families and assist them with as smooth of a transition into the community as possible.

Communities In Schools of the Midlands site coordinators have the ability to provide services for military students and their families. By attending local training classes provided by the Military Child Education Coalition, a national nonprofit whose mission is to ensure inclusive, quality educational experiences for all military children, we are provided with the knowledge and connections to create sustainable partnerships with local military organizations and focus on providing services designed to meet the special needs of military families.

For example, most military bases have a community liaison to help families transition into the school and neighborhood where they have moved. As a site coordinator, having a relationship with this liaison helps both families and students in the transitioning process. The liaison is able to notify site coordinators when new students are coming, and we are able to welcome the students and provide them with whatever they need to thrive; including academic support, a mentor and counseling.

With 1.5 million students in the United States having at least one parent in the military, it is imperative that we educate ourselves and connect our schools with services and programs designed to help these youths overcome their unique barriers. Just as the military protects our nation, we, as Communities In Schools site coordinators, must protect their children and families.

Happy Fourth of July to all, and especially to those with family in the military!

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