Coming Full Circle

A few years ago, Eve McKinsey would have laughed at the idea of becoming a teacher. At risk academically and deeply unhappy, she was referred to Communities In Schools. Today, she works at Communities In Schools while attending college to get her education degree.

Eve McKinsey isn’t just a Communities In Schools of Miami employee and tutor.  She is a Communities In Schools of Miami alumnus.  At 21, she is soft-spoken and friendly.  She has worked very hard to get where she is in life, despite personal struggles which threatened to derail her education and future plans.

Eve became unhappy when she had to leave American High School in Miami, which she loved, because her mother’s financial situation made it necessary to move to a different school district.  At the new high school, Booker T. Washington, Eve felt out of place, and it became clear that she was at risk academically.  She was referred to Corporate Academy North, part of Communities In Schools of Miami’s Bridges to Graduation program, during her junior year at Booker T. Washington.

Melinda Hoder, then project director for Communities In Schools of Miami, identified Eve as a student needing individual attention and coordinated the interventions for her.  “Eve was one of my favorite students,” said Hoder.  “She felt lost at the larger school she had been attending, like a little fish in a big sea.”  Hoder worked with the Corporate Academy North staff and Communities In Schools community partners so that Eve would have the help she needed to get back on track.

“Eve came up the classic road of hardships we see with so many students.  But once she found her niche at Corporate North, she was on a trajectory,” Hoder explained.  Eve received tutoring to help her pass the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test required for graduation.  She participated in a leadership class and became involved in a community service after-school program.  She also was matched with a mentor from the Burger King Corporation, one of Communities In Schools’ partners.

On the first day of her senior year, Eve was dealt a setback when she was assaulted in her neighborhood on her way to school.  It was a very difficult time, and Communities In Schools was there to help.  Hoder said that the one new outfit Eve could afford for school was ruined that day, so Communities In Schools donated $300 toward clothing.  Communities In Schools staff also shored her up with emotional support and arranged for Eve to receive counseling services.

Despite everything, Eve continued to thrive during her senior year.  She served as an aide to Donna Hodes, her leadership and math class teacher.  Communities In Schools of Miami put her to work helping out in the office and placed her in an after-school job with the Communities In Schools affiliate, tutoring elementary school students.  She eventually became head tutor.

“Eve just kept going.  She won awards in so many arenas and subjects, as well as a Bright Futures [through the Florida Department of Education] scholarship,” said Hoder.

Eve is proud to say that she was valedictorian of her graduating class of 2005 at Corporate Academy North.  She is grateful to Communities In Schools of Miami and especially to Hoder.  “If it wasn’t for Melinda and my teachers at Corporate North, I wouldn’t have gotten through school,” she said.

Today, Eve is working toward her associate degree at Miami Dade College.  She plans to major in early childhood education so that she can become a teacher.

March 2009