Immigrant students are suffering more anxiety over the “rhetoric around immigration and ICE raids,” said Dale Erquiaga, the president and CEO of Communities In Schools, a national nonprofit that works to connect schools with community services. “The other is race. We hear a lot from our sites about African-American students… [that] race conversations in the country ratchets up their anxiety and anger.”

Communities In Schools (CIS), the national organization dedicated to empowering at-risk students to stay in school and on a path to a brighter future, is delighted to welcome NBA Hall of Famer, Shaquille O’Neal as the newest member of its national board of directors. 

Both communities face similar challenges related to poverty: kids who drop out because they need to work; kids who must take care of younger siblings or sick family members; kids who have untreated health problems of their own that keep them out of school; or kids who are afraid to walk through their neighborhoods due to violence. Despite these challenges, Chanute’s graduation rate clocks in at 95 percent and Wake County at 89.1 percent. Both higher than the Kansas and North Carolina graduation rates, 90 percent and 87.9 percent, respectively.