Opinion - Communities In Schools

The American Dream Isn't the Freedom to Leave. It's the Responsibility to Return.

Here's what that taught me: the American dream has never been a solo act. My father's labor made my opportunity possible. My opportunity was unlocked because someone showed up inside a public system and decided a different future was worth betting on. We tell this story as if it's about individual grit. It isn't. It's about infrastructure.

Opinion | July 27, 2026

How High School Attendance Impacts Tennessee's Workforce

Across Tennessee, we are having important conversations about workforce development – how to attract jobs, grow our economy and prepare the next generation for success. But one of the clearest indicators of our future workforce is often overlooked: whether students show up to school each day.

Opinion | June 15, 2026

Four students throwing their red caps in the air

The Diploma Is Just the Beginning

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.

Opinion | June 15, 2026

CIS of Jacksonville Hope = Success students tour the Jacksonville Coach Distribution Center

Workforce Development Is Our Strategy

What happens to students after they turn the tassel can be even more important than getting them to the graduation stage. Communities In Schools of Jacksonville is evolving to better serve our community with a new focus on preparing students for graduation, and what comes next: college, the military or the workforce.

Opinion | May 15, 2026

Jessica Knapp, President and CEO of CIS of PA

Mentoring Is the Key to Keeping Kids in School

Every student who beats the odds and stays in school shares one common thread: a caring adult who saw their potential. That person checked in during absences, encouraged them through setbacks, and affirmed their worth, proving that one relationship can change everything.

Opinion | Feb. 18, 2026

Mallory DePrekel, CEO of Communities In Schools of Michigan

Student Support Can Solve Chronic Absenteeism in Michigan

Michigan cannot improve its education system until students are actually in school, but chronic absenteeism isn’t simply a policy problem; it's a student support problem. Until we address the barriers keeping kids out of classrooms, no amount of accountability, incentives, mandates or enforcement will move the needle.

Opinion | Feb. 9, 2026

Showing Up in the Classroom Counts

Chronic absenteeism—defined as missing 10 percent or more of the school year for any reason—affects 25 percent of Ohio students. Throughout the Columbus region, thousands of young people are at risk of falling behind. By sixth grade, chronic absence is one of the strongest predictors of dropping out. Even a few missed days each month make it harder for students to read on grade level, stay engaged in class or graduate.

Opinion | Dec. 8, 2025

Tami Hance-Lehr, CEO and State Director, CIS of Nevada

Why Cutting Student Support Now Will Cost Nevada Later

At Communities In Schools of Nevada, we’ve seen what’s possible when public and private sectors come together. With increased federal and state investment over the past several years, we’ve grown from serving 80 schools to nearly 120, a 50% increase. And even with that rapid expansion, we delivered the strongest outcomes in our history: a 97% graduation rate for students in our case-managed programs. It’s proof that public-private partnerships can scale effectively and solve some of society’s most complex challenges.

Opinion | Aug. 15, 2025

Jill Cox, CEO, Communities In Schools of North Carolina

Being Present Matters: Addressing Chronic Absenteeism Requires Community-Wide Solutions

As schools across North Carolina grapple with academic recovery post-pandemic, one alarming trend continues to plague districts large and small: chronic absenteeism. Defined as missing 10% or more of school days in a year, nearly one-third (27%) of North Carolina’s students are considered chronically absent. Before the pandemic, about 16% of students were chronically absent. By the 2021-2022 school year, that number surged to 32%. In 2023, 27% represented over 500,000 students missing a significant amount of school.

Opinion | Jan. 7, 2025

How to Help Students Find Their Way Back to Regular School Attendance

According to the latest data, 2 out of 5 Chicago Public Schools students were chronically absent during the 2022-23 academic year. That means they missed 18 or more school days. The district’s 40% chronic absence rate is 16 points higher than before the pandemic, and it represents more than 2 million missed school days. Like so many social challenges impacting our city, the phenomenon is unevenly spread.

Opinion | Dec. 9, 2024

Tackling Chronic Absenteeism Requires Collective Action

As someone with more than 20 years of experience in youth development in DC, I have witnessed firsthand the importance of collective action in driving positive student outcomes, especially for our most vulnerable populations. As students across the District return to school, our city must come together to deal with a crisis that, if left unaddressed, will have long-term consequences for our children and our community.

Opinion | Dec. 2, 2024

CIS Site Coordinator Marco and Alumnus Esteban

Being Present Matters: The Fight to End Chronic Absenteeism

This month, as 50 million public school students across the U.S. return to the classroom, it’s clear that the pandemic’s impact on students and families isn’t over. Four years after the shutdowns of 2020, millions of students are academically behind.

Opinion | Sept. 30, 2024

Jessica Knapp (left) is executive director of CIS of PA

There’s an urgent need for “wraparound services” to support low-income students in Pennsylvania

Not all students have an equal chance to succeed. The socioeconomic achievement gap is a real phenomenon in which lower-income children are significantly less likely to succeed than their wealthier classmates. Poverty affects children’s brain development, causing challenges in paying attention and retaining information. Low-income students also attend schools with insufficient funding and resources, such as quality teachers.

Opinion | Feb. 5, 2024

Chronic absenteeism doesn’t have just one solution — it has many

Chronic absenteeism has emerged as one of the most severe problems facing American students and educators today. In this op-ed, Rey Saldaña, President and CEO of CIS National, and Debbie Palacios, Executive Director of CIS of Southern Nevada, discuss how solving this problem starts by understanding what’s keeping students away and removing those barriers.

Opinion | Jan. 4, 2024