Newsletter - Oct. 2009

SUCCESS STORIES

Thanks to the generosity of donors, CIS has helped thousands of children excel in schools throughout the Charleston region. learn more

ROUNDBALL CLASSIC
December 28, 29, 30, 2009

The Roundball Classic is a nationally-recognized basketball tournament that benefits Communities In Schools of the Charleston Area, Inc. and the Rotary Club of North Charleston. learn more

THE CHOCOLATE AFFAIR
February 6, 2010

The Chocolate Affair is a gala function offering gourmet catering, chocolate desserts from Charleston's finest restaurants and speciality shops, and auction items. learn more

CHARLESTON YACHT AFFAIR
May 16, 2010

The Charleston Yacht Affair features exclusive yacht tours, delicious cuisine from Charleston’s top chefs, entertainment and more. learn more

RESOURCES

Achievement Gap Report (PDF)
Graduation Rate Fact Sheet (PDF)
Sobering Costs of Dropouts in SC (PDF)

CIS Background and Programs

Communities In Schools of the Charleston (SC) Area, Inc. (CIS) is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit dropout prevention agency whose mission is to champion all youth to stay in school by connecting the best community resources with the needs of students, their families and schools. The overarching goal of Communities In Schools is that all students complete high school. Affiliated with the 31 year-old Communities In Schools-National, CIS opened locally in 1989. A unique collaboration with the Charleston and Berkeley County School Districts allows CIS Student Support Specialists to work within schools where they can respond to the needs of children and their families as they arise. Woth magazine has twice recognized CIS as one of the 100 charities that will save the world.

Communities In Schools of the Charleston Area, Inc. (CIS) is a charter member of the national dropout prevention network (CIS National) and is located in Charleston, South Carolina. Formerly known as Cities in Schools, CIS-Charleston was established in 1989 following a study by the Johns Hopkins University in Maryland that advised the Charleston County School District to implement dropout prevention programs. In 1990, CIS established the Septima P. Clark Corporate Academy, Charleston County’s first alternative high school. The Clark Academy offers a low student/teacher ratio and a comprehensive support staff for students who have previously not excelled in the traditional school setting. The academy has been recognized by America’s Promise as one of America’s Schools of Promise.

Through outstanding partnerships and the efforts of a committed staff and Board of Directors, Communities In Schools has worked to help students remain in school, in an environment tailored to their particular needs, and in a program that prepares them for life as productive adults. Because of “working partnerships” with various organizations, CIS is able to provide a variety of services. Currently, we work with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), The Charleston Center (Department of Alcohol and other Drug Abuse Services), Charleston County Department of Social Services (DSS), Florence Crittenton Programs of South Carolina, South Carolina Department of Social Services (SCDSS), South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (SCDHHS), South Carolina Department of Environmental Control (DHEC), Trident United Way, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Club, Boy Scouts of America, The Mayor’s Office for Children, Outward Bound, Youth and Families, Charleston/Dorchester Community Mental Health Center, Rural Missions, City of Charleston Department of Recreation, From Darkness to Light, Parents Anonymous of South Carolina, South Carolina Center for Family Programs, Charleston County Parks and Recreation, and other organizations, each of which provide services as part of its partnership with CIS. In this manner, CIS brings the expertise and resources of existing agencies into the dropout prevention arena.

Within this diversity of approaches, all CIS partnerships are united behind “the five basics for kids”:

➢ Every child needs and deserves a personal, one-on-one relationship with a caring adult
➢ Every child needs and deserves a safe place to learn and grow
➢ Every child needs and deserves a marketable skill to use upon graduation
➢ Every child needs and deserves a chance to give back to peers and community
➢ Every child needs and deserves a healthy start and a healthy future

Results

CIS has been very successful in achieving positive results with the students who actively participate in the CIS programs. For the 2008-09 school year, the following outcomes were achieved based on 594 students who received Student Support services:

➢ Academic achievement: 82% of the students who actively participated in CIS programs improved numeric grades in one or more core subject area
➢ Attendance rate: 91% of the students who participated in CIS programs maintained acceptable attendance rates
➢ Promotion: 97% of the students who actively participated in CIS programs were promoted to the next grade level
➢ Graduation rate: 100% of the eligible 12th grade students who actively participated in CIS programs graduated
➢ Pregnancy rate: The pregnancy rate for female students who actively participated in CIS programs is 0.08%

During the 2008-2009 school year, Communities In Schools will serve students in fifteen schools:

➢ North Charleston Elementary School **
➢ Angel Oak Elementary School*
➢ Jane Edwards Community School
➢ Edith L. Frierson Elementary School *
➢ Mitchell Elementary School
➢ Jennie Moore Elementary School
➢ Orange Grove Elementary School
➢ Haut Gap Middle School **
➢ St. Johns High School ***
➢ Septima P. Clark Corporate Academy **
➢ Sixth Grade Academy*
➢ Memminger Elementary School *
➢ St. Stephen Middle School *
➢ St. Stephen Elementary School *
➢ Alice Birney Middle School*
➢ Baptist Hill High School*
➢ Burke Middle/High*
➢ Lincoln Middle/High*
➢ North Charleston High

* denotes number of CIS staff members

Student Support Program

The Communities In Schools Student Support Program is designed to address the risk and protective factors that influence a child’s decision to stay in school. Youth specialists are positioned in 13 schools throughout Charleston County, and two in Berkeley County. They case manage students who have been identified as being at risk of becoming high school dropouts. In addition, these specialists work with the entire school population in collaboration with the Charleston County School District’s Positive Behavior Support Model.

The level of services provided children is characterized based on the needs they exhibit:

Level 1 – Services and resources that are widely accessible to any student at the CIS site. They are short-term interventions with durations of a few hours or days and are provided or brokered on an as-needed or as-available basis. Students need not be enrolled in a specific CIS initiative to benefit from such resources and services, but must be a member of the school population at large. Some examples of Level 1 resources or services include providing clothing or school supplies, assemblies, events, career fairs, field trips, health screenings, service-learning and grief counseling.

Level 2 – Unlike Level 1, where virtually any student at a school may benefit, Level 2 resources and services are provided through well-defined CIS initiatives targeted for students and/or families with long-term needs. These initiatives typically include some type of enrollment or assignment procedures. They are sustained interventions with durations of several weeks, months or an entire school year. Level 2 services are usually designed to achieve one or more tracked outcome such as improved academic performance, attendance or behavior. Examples of such interventions include tutoring, mentoring, CIS classes and after-school programs.

Level 3- Level 3 students are those who are case-managed by CIS Student Support Specialists and receive more than one CIS service or resource weekly. These students have been identified as having risk factors that can lead to dropping out of school. Level 3 students who participate in CIS services at least 75% of the time are those who are tracked for progress in the areas of promotion, graduation, grades, school attendance and behavior, and teen pregnancy rates. CIS staff members also provide direct services including mentoring; pregnancy prevention services; life skills lessons; and case management including assessment, goal setting, crisis intervention, information/referral, home visits, and tracking of progress. These services are brought into the school, where they can have a daily and direct impact on the students.

Using evidence-based approaches, these specialists have the following main objectives:

1. Increase academics
2. Improve school attendance
3. Improve positive behavior
4. Increase attachments to school
5. Decrease teen pregnancy
6. Increase family cohesiveness

Communities In Schools meets these objectives by providing the following services:

1. Tutoring
2. Mentoring
3. Service-learning
4. After school programs
5. Enrichment and field trip opportunities
6. Life skills
7. Abstinence-based pregnancy prevention and character development
8. Family connectedness programs and parent support groups
9. Identifying needs and brokering social services to students and parents

CIS Student Support Specialists have, at a minimum, a Bachelor’s degree in Education or Sociology. Some staff members have received a Masters degree in Education or Counseling and a licensure in a health care field. All unlicensed staff members are directly supervised by a licensed or certified health care professional in order to provide individual and/or group educational counseling. Ongoing training hours are required by DHHS in order to provide Medicaid Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (MAPPS), a billable service in which CIS is a contracted provider.

Synopses of Communities In Schools’ Programs

Teen Companion
The Teen Companion program utilizes evidence-based strategies to ensure that students are offered wraparound intervention designed to reduce teen pregnancies and increase school success. A partnership with the Charleston County School District allows Student Support Specialists to be on site at the schools on a full-time basis. This access increases intervention opportunities and assists specialists in developing rapport with students, families, teachers, counselors, and administrators. Establishing these positive relationships makes it possible for CIS to have a real impact on school and family intervention services. Before interventions begin, a needs assessment and case plan is completed by the student, parent or guardian, and youth specialist. The child can then begin participating in individual and group counseling and education sessions structured to encourage positive choices, and home-visitations, which allow staff to better assess client needs. Specialists can then refer families to outside resources when necessary. Student Support Specialists also work with the whole-school population by helping Whole School Strategists recruit volunteers/mentors, speakers and parent workshop facilitators.

Whole School Model
This model employs system wide strategies and processes for developing, strengthening and taking to scale school-based and community linked services. As a comprehensive approach, the “Whole School Model” supports and engages communities to meet the needs of and improve outcomes for all children and families associated with the school. The model facilitates the implementation of integrated service delivery systems, utilizes existing resources through brokering of services and is based on community input, needs and assets. The brokering of services through existing community agencies prevents duplication of services and places services in the school where students/families have access on a daily basis. The whole school model is flexible to meet significant and multiple needs of students (i.e. mental health counseling, pregnancy prevention services, medical screening) as well as resolve minor barriers to success (i.e. eyeglasses). A CIS Student Support Specialist is housed at the school to serve as the facilitator of the “whole school model” conducting needs assessments, identifying and connecting resources and ensuring the effective and continuing relationships between services providers and school administrators.

After-School Programming
After-School programming is often part of a whole-school strategy. In order to offer an array of services without duplication, Student Support Specialists coordinate services with existing after-school programming at individual school sites. CIS After-School components provide young people with comprehensive, wrap-around services, in an enriching, safe and nurturing environment. Through a mutually beneficial and supportive partnership with the schools, after-school programs strive to improve students’ sense of responsibility, attachment to school, motivation, and self-esteem through activities that are age, gender, and culturally appropriate. These activities include tutoring, mentoring, career counseling, pregnancy prevention, healthy decision-making, service learning and physical and creative expression. Mentoring Communities In Schools (CIS) mentoring programs match students with "mentors" -- exemplary adults from the community who have volunteered to dedicate themselves to at least one year of one-on-one, weekly interaction with a CIS student. Mentoring is one of the most powerful tools to combat the growing disconnection between high school students and young professionals in our society. The model is unique in that mentor services are provided as one component of the total CIS program and services are provided on site, at the school, with a full-time Mentor Coordinator who functions as part of the school staff. The goal of the Mentor Program is to expose students to personal and positive role models on a weekly basis throughout the school year, consequently reducing the risk factors that lead to dropping out of school.

Wise Guys Club
Wise Guys is an evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention program stressing male responsibility and character building. The Wise Guys program curriculum consists of ten components including self-esteem, values clarification, communication, sexuality, abstinence and contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, decision-making, goal-setting, dating violence and parenthood. Male students meet weekly with CIS Youth Specialists working in the schools throughout the school year in an after-school, ‘club like’ environment.

Lions-Quest Skills for Adolescence
This curriculum focuses on character education, communication skills and life skills education to help guide young people to make healthy choices. The program goals are as follows: Help youth resist negative pressures and live healthy, drug-free lives; Celebrate diversity; Build active citizenship skills through real-life community service; Provide resources and support to adults who support young people; Involve the family, school and community. The program teaches important life skills to youth by using the most up-to-date research and strategies and also by bringing the home, community and school together to help youth be successful.

Can We Talk?
A parent education program to begin to bridge the gap that often exists between schools, parents and their children around difficult topics related to sexuality and health, drugs, harassment and bullying. It is based on the belief that young people's academic achievement is directly influenced by their emotional, physical and sexual health, and that outcomes can be improved through effective family education and community partnerships

Support Our Students (SOS)
The SOS Tutoring Program is a year-long tutoring program for elementary school children that focuses on providing tutor/mentors for students who need tutoring in literacy. During the summer, volunteers will tutor students two hours each morning four days a week for seven weeks. During the school year, CIS will offer the program two hours after school one day per week. The program is a continuation of the SOS Tutoring Program implemented by Communities In Schools that was offered during the summer of 2003. CIS provides a full-time staff member to coordinate the program.

SAFE Initiative
(Sea Island Advocates For Education) A multifaceted collaborative initiative on Johns Island and Wadmalaw Island. The coalition of organizations is committed to reducing the dropout rate and teen pregnancies on Johns Island and Wadmalaw Island. The initiative includes researched-based successful programs, educational curriculum enhancement, community and youth development programming, and increased access to health care and prevention services.

LINKS TO SUCCESS
Links to Success is a Trident United Way (TUW) collaboration in which CIS staff serve as Integrated Services Providers, coordinating the services of Linking Partners funded by the TUW. Linking partners include Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs of the Trident Area, Boy Scouts of America, Wings for Kids, Lowcountry Foodbank, Lowcountry Earth Force, SC Maritime Foundation, The Dee Norton Lowcountry Children’s Center, and SideWalk Chalk.