Communities in Schools

Scotty and Hannah talk to Jennifer Reavis about helping students succeed in school.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Carolina Cares. It's ScottyBlaisdell and Hannah Tyler. Back at it
with another great guest, our firsttime meeting, Jennifer Revis. And she
is with Communities in Schools Executive Director'sofficial title right correct of the hot Point
affiliate high Point Affiliate Because yes,okay, is Communities in Schools a nationwide

(00:20):
organization. Yes, we are anationwide dropout prevention program. And here in
North Carolina there are I believe nineteenaffiliates here in Guilford County. We have
one affiliate in Greensboro and one affiliateand hot Point you probably just answered the
first question, Really, what isit all about? Sounds like your mission
is education. It is education.We are We began from a United way

(00:44):
of hot Point study that said dropoutprevention was drop out rates were on the
rise, and this was an ideaback in nineteen eighty eight to help with
the prevention of that. We focuson attendance, behavior, curriculum, ledge
and career readiness, and parent involvement, not just parent engagement reaching out to
them, but actual involvement and gettingthem to return phone calls texts, come

(01:10):
into the school for an event,and really getting them involved with their students'
education. Now, I see onyour website that one hundred percent of your
case managed students actually stay in schooland graduate. What overall in the high
Point community, though, is thatdropout rate at so each school has a
graduation rate, and I think theour two high schools that we serve are
to Winget Andrews and high Point CentralHigh and their graduation rates are currently a

(01:38):
little bit higher than the state,right around between eighty nine and ninety one
percent. Okay, what is itthat causes a kid to want to drop
out? What's the draw right nowfor not finishing your education? Well,
our students are coming off a verytraumatic period. We're all coming off of
a very traumatic period through COVID.But the students that communities and schools serves

(02:00):
in High Point are predominantly coming froma place of poverty. They have all
kinds of disadvantages, and a lotof them have to work, so they
are struggling with being sometimes the solesupport for their families. They you know,
their parents may not have had agreat academic experience in school, and

(02:22):
they you know, there's not thatparent involvement, especially at the high school
level. To stay in school.Sometimes they're familial expectations that you're going to
stay home and take care of thesmaller children. There are just a lot
of things going on with our families. We have a lot that are you
know, transitioning in and out ofhousing, in and out of the district,

(02:46):
a lot of very transient population.So we just kind of see a
mixture of all different kinds of things. So, Jennifer, when you hear
a story like that, you andyour organization go in and give I'm guessing
a lot of education, maybe someresources to help people be able to meet
the needs that they have and stillkeep the education going correct. So we

(03:07):
have site based coordinators in each oneof our schools. We're currently serving eight.
We've had an opening at All andJay Elementary this school year. So
each site coordinator works with about tenpercent of the population and those are their
case managed students. They also dosmall group type things and whole school supports.

(03:29):
So if it's a case managed studentwho is finding themselves in a situation
where they're about to be evicted,you know, if it's a matter of
two days or you know, ahandful of days before they can get into
new housing, we might assist withsome lodging expenses because we want to keep
them in the district, in theschool. If they're not coming to school,

(03:52):
then they're not getting the benefit ofthe free and breakfast and lunch.
They're not getting the benefit of thehigh dose sititutoring, They're not getting the
benefit of being in the class andhopefully absorbing something. We just try.
Yeah, no, I know youwork with the school districts. Are you
filling in gaps where maybe they don'thave the resources to help these students.

(04:15):
So for some of it, weare. Our site coordinators work very closely
with the student support teams, whichinclude the data manager who knows all about
attendance and behavior issues, the counselors, and the school social workers. So
they are working in conjunction with eachother because kids know and they just they
mesh with different people for different things. So each one of those folks might

(04:40):
have a different piece of that student'spuzzle about what's going on with that student.
So we're just an extra layer ofsupport to help make connections with community
resources. I know you recently hadd up in here and they are a
great community partner. So we helpfigure out which kids need after school supports,
of the after school supports. Ifthey're struggling in the tutoring after school,

(05:03):
you know, they're going to makethat connection. So we can make
sure that they're getting some tutoring inschool. You know, if they're having
struggles in school, we can talkto those after school folks, or we
can support teams if they need amentor if they just need an adult in
their life that has you know,just another perspective, and it's just another
person that's going to care about thiskid, that's going to check in on

(05:25):
them, make sure that they're gettingwhat they need in order to be successful.
Later on, we're talking to JenniferRevis by the way communities in schools,
How is our education system going?I mean in North Carolina specifically maybe

(05:45):
in High Point. I know theteachers work hard. I hear nothing but
good things about the people that arein charge, but sometimes it feels like
they can't do it all right correct. Teachers are no longer just teaching curriculum.
They are making sure that their kidsare fed, that their clothes,
that they're kind of managing with carethe trauma that each student is coming into

(06:12):
the school with, and not everystudent is coming in with full blown trauma.
But sometimes they had an argument withthe siblings. Sometimes they got into
a car accident or a pet ranaway. I mean, there's little versions
of trauma as well, and they'recoming to school with it. And now
kids are like all about their feelings. Everybody's telling them to express all that.
I'm a kid of the seventies.It was like, just shove it
down and go outside and play.But they're expressing so much more, which

(06:36):
is good, but it can bea little bit overwhelming when you're trying to
teach this new fangled math and socause I can't even do the math with
mine I have many a story ofmy dad yelling at the table not understanding
like the math how he learned itversus how I learned it. It was
a whole thing. It's a wholething, exactly. So sometimes it's easier

(06:58):
to just call the school and saylike, I cannot do this, can
you? You know, they needhelp with the math, and so we're
just there to be an extra supportfor that for that student. The system
our district has some great things goingon in it. All of our schools
that we are serving, our CEP, which means they qualify every student at
the school gets free breakfast and lunch, even if you know. My daughter

(07:24):
went to one of those schools aswell, and it was like, Maggie,
I know you had breakfast at home, but grab it and then they'll
just put it in their little refrigeratorsto make sure that they give it to
someone who make need to take ithome for an afternoon's Now, so you're
getting that high dosage tutoring. We'recoming off that COVID learning loss. The
district is putting a lot of dollarsinto the high dosage tutoring in the middle

(07:46):
and high school learning labs. Again, if you don't come to school,
you don't get the benefit of it. So a lot of what our site
coordinators are doing this year is focusingvery strongly on attendance, getting them in
the building to make sure that they'rebenefiting from all of the supports that the
district is providing them. I amcurious about the support you give your older

(08:07):
students. I'm thinking juniors and seniorswho maybe have struggled to get to the
point where they're at. They're aboutto graduate, but they're nervous about the
next step in life. Do youguys offer any resources to them? So
we do so definitely at high PointCentral, we're implementing some things over at
Andrews. We have different groups thatthey can join because Central is such a
large student population, we have twosite coordinators there. Their intern is actually

(08:31):
amazing this year and so she's runninga group for females. Terrell is running
a group for his older male students, and it's talking about job interviews.
How do you fill out an application, what do you wear to an interview?
And how do you use different languagein your interview than you might use
at home or at school. Sothey are trying to help them figure out

(08:54):
kind of those next steps. Weoffer a scholarship program to our seniors,
so we're really to be able todo that again this year. So and
then this year we've also started ouralumni engagement program. So one of our
ssite coordinators at Central has started lastsummer he started reaching out to our young
alumni. There's a group the opportunityyouth from like sixteen to twenty five that

(09:16):
are not enrolled in school. They'renot working, so what are they doing.
We want to make sure that noneof our kids are falling into that,
and so he has been able toreach out and really kind of pull
some of them back in. Someof them. You know, we're graduating.
Tashi In Pickenpack is now at Ferndale. She's one of our alumni.
She was just graduating with her master'sin social work when Terrell reached out to

(09:41):
her last summer for this alumni event, and now she's our coordinator at Ferndale,
So, you know, just kindof making sure that we're staying with
them and they know that there's stillsomebody out there who cares. And Tiffer
for I know there's sometimes it's achallenging situation someone's in. You mentioned some
of those they need to bring inthe money for the house or whatever.

(10:03):
But sometimes a kid just doesn't wantto go to school, and is there
anything you can do. Maybe aparent's listening right now, I want him
to go to school? Why orher? Do you help with that situation
as well? Do you have anyresources for those parents? So our attendant

(10:24):
stuff looks very different at every agegroup. So at elementary, you know,
they are making personal phone calls andit's a lot like hey, we
missed you at school today, Scottie. We were doing a music project,
or we went to music and Iknow how much you love that, Or
we went to art and I pulledthe stuff and I really look forward to
you being here tomorrow so that wecan do that. Part of it is

(10:46):
you want the kid to really goin there and be like mom, mom,
mom, mom, mom, Yeah, and take me to school.
They can't drive themselves. But onceyou get to the older kids who can
physically get themselves out of bed mightbe left at home in the mornings.
Then it's a little bit more ofa struggle. So we do quarterly attendance

(11:07):
boost which might look like giant pizzaparties. We are open to any and
all ideas to incentivize these kids sothey want to come to school and then
they're not necessarily relying on a thirdparty to get them there. I am
curious and I don't know if youcan speak on this. Parents these days
are spread so that many of themworking multiple jobs just to barely get by,

(11:31):
and oftentimes kids get neglected, notbecause the parents want it to happen,
it's just they have no choice.What are you doing to kind of
help bring parents back into the livesof students while still respecting that they need
to go and provide for their family. So our site coordinators are just trying
to work. A lot of themare on the school leadership teams, so
they are working with the school leadershipto offer all kinds of different things.

(11:54):
So it might be breakfast, itmight be lunch, it might be an
evening activity. We always want totry to include food because that alleviates one
burden of figuring out how you're goingto feed everybody inviting the family and not
just the one parent and the studentat the school. Because if it's younger
kids, you want to get themexcited about coming, you know, when

(12:15):
it's their turn to come to theschool. We have worked with the city
to offer bus passes for some ofour families that have struggles with transportation so
that they can get to i EPFive of four meetings, parent conferences,
or an event at school. We'vehad a couple that we you know,
if it's something like one of ourschools did a Saturday school, we did

(12:41):
it and we incentivized because they weren'table to offer transportation. So at the
end of it, we offered gascards to the parents because they had you
know, they had that expense.They took on that responsibility of getting their
kid there every time, and wefelt like they should be rewarded for that
as well. So we're just tryingto assist those administrators in any way that

(13:01):
we can in making sure that we'resupporting those big ideas that sometimes feel they're
not a lot, but they feellike a lot. Jennifer, what is
the importance of an after school program, something for kids to do from the
time school let's out. I knowI was kind of a latch key is
at the term you use for Iwas one of those and fortunately I was

(13:26):
in a place that didn't have alot of trouble I could get into,
but my mind would have gotten Sohow important is that maybe some sort of
sport or even just some sort ofsocial get together. So the middle and
high schools do offer a lot ofthe sport opportunities. There are certainly more
after school opportunities for the younger kidsfor the elementary than there are for the

(13:48):
middle and high school. It's justimportant. I mean, there's there's a
lot of trouble kids can get intojust on their phone, sitting by themselves.
I mean it's you know, Iwas going to go off and scrape
my knee if I fell off mybike. But I don't think anybody was
worried about me being trafficked, right, So I mean yeah, So,

(14:09):
I mean we have very different thingsthat we're concerned about these days. And
I think any sort of safe afterschool program for any of our kids,
one, it's going to give themsome additional academic supports because almost all of
those after school programs build in sometutoring. They're building in some mentoring because
there is even if it's a highschool kid, there's an adult present that

(14:31):
is making sure that you feel likesomebody missed you today. And then they're
just getting They're all doing such amazingthings with their after school programming, and
all of us are just trying togive these kids as many experiences as possible
because they can't be it if theycan't see it. And just one quick

(14:52):
question. I remember going to school, and it was if you're involved in
extracurriculars, as I was told tome, chances are your grades are better,
you're maintaining that balance better. Areyou seeing a correlation between your students
who are doing these extracurriculars after schoolcompared to the ones that aren't that or
not. Yeah, I don't haveany data on that, but would I
would potentially agree with it because youhave a coach or someone who is paying

(15:18):
attention because you have to qualify forthat. Yeah. Yeah, I mean
you have to maintain some sort ofattendance behavior, an academic record in order
to be able to participate. Sothey are going to be on top at
least during that season. They're goingto be on top of you to make
sure that you're eligible to play forthem. I know we're we have such

(15:41):
a limited time to cover so muchhere, but let me just say this.
I think as a parent, oneof the things that meant so much
to me as my kids are growingup is when other people cared about them
too. And I think this iswhat communities in schools is doing. Is
they're caring about our kids, andmaybe they're touching them in a way,

(16:04):
a positive way, an influential waythat maybe we as parents. They're not
listening to us, but they're hearingthese other mentor type figures, these coaches,
just people saying how you doing,and so for that we applaud you
and the hard work you're doing therewith your staff. That is Jennifer Revis,

(16:25):
thanks for coming in today, thankyou for having And if someone wants
to contact you or the organization,how can they do that? They can
call us at three three six eighteight three six four three four, or
they can visit our website at wwwdot CISO, Highpoint dot org, easypasy.
Executive Director of Communities and Schools ofHighpoint. That is Jennifer Revis,

(16:48):
and this is Carolina Cares