VOLUME 10 • NUMBER 3 • October 2014 Contents CIS Benefit …puyallup.ciswa.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/12/... · 2019. 9. 23. · Contents VOLUME 10 • NUMBER 3 •

ContentsVOLUME 10 • NUMBER 3 • October 2014

A quarterly newsletter of Communities In Schools,the nation’s leading dropout prevention organization

CIS Benefit Dinner Honors Elaine Wynn

National Board Chairman, Elaine Wynn, was honored at a gala in New York City this September for her inexhaustible dedication to Communities In Schools and at-risk youth nationwide. The event was held at Cipriani 42nd Street to celebrate Wynn and raise funds for the national office. Longtime supporters Michael Milken and Julian H. Robertson Jr., served as national event chairs, with Mellody Hobson chairing the host committee.

The Soul Tigers Marching Band, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit music education program dedicated to keeping young people safe during after-school hours, escorted Wynn to dinner, where dancers from the Ailey School performed “4th Quarter OT,” a basketball-themed routine in honor of her love of basketball and dance.

Communities In Schools’ work was shared with the nearly 350 guests through student voices in

the new “Whatever It Takes” video, remarks by President Dan Cardinali, and the personal stories of alumni Jamal Tate and Ellie Densford.

“Before my involvement with Communities In Schools, I didn’t have a picture perfect life; my mom was in and out of rehab. There was no way I could stay focused in school,” said Densford describing her experience with CIS. Once she was connected to her site coordinator, Liberty Nicholas, things began to turn around. “Miss Liberty encouraged me. She lifted me up. She made me understand that even though things were bad at home, they didn’t always have to be that way.”

Daughters Gillian and Kevyn Wynn introduced their mother, with remarks that captured the true spirit of her commitment to at-risk youth.

Honoree Elaine Wynn (left), CIS national board chairman, alongside Liberty Nicholas, Jamal Tate, Ellie Densford, Kevyn Wynn and Talitha Haley, at New York City’s Cipriani 42nd Street on the evening of the benefit gala. Photo by Sylvain Gaboury

2President’s Message

4Seen and Heard

Photo Essay – Summer Institute

Communities In Schools’ Summer Institute Inspires

3Student Success Story: On Track (and Field) for Greatness

Extreme Makeover: CIS Unveils New-Look Website

5Spotlight on Success

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Chairman Elaine Wynn Director Wynn Resorts

Founder and Vice Chairman William E. MillikenCommunities In Schools National Office

Secretary Ava D. YoungbloodChief Executive OfficerYoungblood Executive Search

Christopher F. Allwin Vice President General Maritime Corporation

Robert H.B. Baldwin, Jr. Vice Chairman Heartland Payment Systems Martin R. Castro Co‐Founder, New Futuro and Nuestro Futuro Chair, U.S. Commission on Civil RightsJames Cox Chambers Producer Field Hands ProductionsDaniel A. Domenech Executive Director American Association of School AdminstratorsJohn R. Ettinger CEO The Helmsley TrustMichael French Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer Altria Client Services Inc. Rhoda Glickman Senior Vice President for Business Services Empire State Development Corporation

Michael Keithley Chief Information Officer Creative Artists Agency

Jillian Manus Founder Manus Media & Literary Agency Inc. CEO and Co-Founder Broad Strategy, LLCJohn NixonExecutive Director ICAP®

Michael Parham Senior Vice President and General Counsel RealNetworks, Inc.Jonathan G. Powers Deputy Supervisor Town of Pound Ridge, N.Y.Manoj Saxena Managing Director The Entrepreneurs’ Fund

Leonard Stern Partner SS+KDonna Weiss

Sherrie Rollins Westin Executive Vice President Sesame WorkshopLinda Gale White Former First Lady of Texas

President Daniel J. Cardinali Communities In Schools National Office

Board of Directors

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As the calendar changes from summer to fall, we eagerly approach a new season and the start of a new school year. Along with the excitement that comes from new beginnings, at Communities In Schools we also take pleasure in familiar routines. Our mission, at the start of this and every school year, remains the same: we work with everyone to change the picture of education for thousands of students every year. We do this by keeping kids in school, doing whatever it takes to eliminate barriers and never giving up, on anyone.

Our vision includes the 16 million American children living below the federal poverty line and working to see them also succeed in school. This was the topic of a recent op-ed piece I penned for The New York Times. And we are con- vinced an effective strategy for reaching more at-risk students is to provide for increased school-based social services.

In this edition of Inside CIS, we take a moment to look back at an eventful summer. In July Communities In Schools held its second annual Summer Institute, a conference created to educate and inspire. More than 500 site coordinators, program directors and site-level staff participated in the three-day event. Our goal of striving to become a premier learning environment is being realized.

We also honored education advocate and philanthropist Elaine Wynn, the chairman of the Communities In Schools national board of directors, with a dinner and fundraiser. The evening was in recog- nition of Elaine’s accomplishments, her lifelong commitment to our nation’s at-risk youth and the impact her contri- bution has had on the education crisis in our country.

And our summer included the launch of our new-look website. Bold images and fresh graphics highlight the redesign, which has also been upgraded to enhance our growing audiences’ browsing expe- rience on desktop, tablet and mobile

devices. Be sure to have a look at www.communitiesinschools.org.

In this issue you’ll also read about Raven Saunders, the 2014 Gatorade Female Track & Field Athlete of the Year. With the help of site coordinators at CIS of Charleston, Saunders was able to success- fully navigate school and sports, turn her once floundering academic career around and reach a level of success she scarcely imagined. She is yet another sterling example of the power of resiliency that we’ve always celebrated in the pages of Inside CIS.

We should note that this edition marks a transition point for the Inside CIS newsletter. This will be the last printed version of the quarterly publication. Moving forward we will provide continu- ous content by sharing our organization’s most vital information with you in real time on our new website, via our intranet site, The Loop, and through our social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

We look forward to another year of supporting students and helping them successfully break through barriers so that they can achieve their potential.

President’s MessagePast Achievements, New Beginnings

Dan Cardinali, President, Communities In SchoolsPhoto by William Waybourn

Raven Saunders: On Track (and Field) for GreatnessA Student Success Story

Extreme Makeover: CIS Unveils New-Look Website

At 15, Raven was overwhelmed by school, issues at home and athletics. She was in a slump, simply going through the motions and had trouble staying focused. After some tough talks with her track and field coach, Raven found herself sitting

in front of Communities In Schools of Charleston site coordinators Katrina Bell and Robert Ellington.

Bell and Ellington helped Raven not only with home issues, but they also provided a safe place where she could just be herself. They also acted as guidance counselors, offering her some much-needed assistance while giving her the time and space to make her own deci- sions about her future college and sports plans. By the time Raven entered her senior year of high school, she had turned her academic career around, and raised her GPA from 2.1 to 3.0. She was no longer just going through the motions.

With the help of coaches, teachers, CIS staff, friends and family, Raven not only made improvements in school, but huge leaps in track and field. In April 2014, she set a national prep record at the Taco Bell Classic, launching the shot put 56 feet, 8.25 inches to break a mark set in 2003. She almost repeated the effort

On Aug. 8, after months of meetings and planning, late nights and weekends, mock pages and testing, the new Communities In Schools national website went live. As well as featuring a clean, user-friendly layout, the new site has been responsively designed to enhance the viewer’s browsing experience across all platforms, including desktop, tablet and mobile devices, to meet the demands of CIS’s growing audience. With the addition of better sharing tools across the site, images and stories better engage, captivate and inspire readers to help change the picture of education.

“We’ve come such a long way in the past few months to position CIS as a nonprofit leader in the digital landscape. Our digital partners, Threespot and Wellfire, as well as every single person at Communities

In Schools has collaborated to create something that puts our best foot forward,” said Amy Labenski, director, digital marketing, at Communities In Schools.

The redesign also boasts the full integration of a new and improved blog. Articles including student and site coordi- nator success stories, as well as news about education issues and policies, will continue to populate the content on the website. You can visit the new website and take a test drive at www.comunitiesinschools.org.

at the New Balance Nationals Outdoor, where she earned a national title with a throw of 56 feet, 7.5 inches. As of July 2014, Raven holds the top four throws in prep history and has six throws in the top 20.

As a result of her success on the field, Raven was named Gatorade’s Female Track & Field Athlete of the Year. She celebrated this prestigious award with Gatorade’s 11 additional 2013-2014 nati- onal winners as part of the ESPY Awards in Los Angeles, Calif. In addition, she is continuing her academic and track and field success this fall at Southern Illinois University.

The student athlete tweeted the following after receiving her honor: “It has been a wonderful day. I thank God for it all. Gatorade National Girls Track and Field Athlete of the year.”

Raven, a CIS of Charleston alum, proudly holding her Gatorade Female Track & Field Athlete of the Year award. Photo courtesy of USA Today.com

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Ed Secy Arne Duncan Visits CIS of Central Texas They say the best public policy is well-informed by the people closest to its impact. In June several young male parti- cipants of the Communities In Schools of Central Texas XY Zone program had the opportunity to share their voice and their wisdom with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. At a roundtable discussion in Austin, Texas, the secretary explained to the 10 young men that our nation must address the particular needs of young men of color, who are, by many measures, taking wrong turns in life and not reaching their potential. Secretary Duncan shared that President Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative seeks to rally our nation to do a better job with our young men, guiding and supporting them to success as adults.

The CIS of Central Texas’ XY Zone leadership development and peer support program provides many of the very supports the students had been suggesting – relationships with caring and supportive adults, opportunities to get out into the community, college and career exploration and service learning activities.

At the conclusion of the roundtable discussion, secretary Duncan praised

the students and shared these words of encouragement: “So much of success is grit, resilience. The trials and tests didn’t break you, but made you stronger.” The secretary could clearly see that the young men of the XY Zone have developed the grit, resilience and strength to realize their potential.

CIS of Puyallup Packs Canoe with Back-to-School SuppliesThousands of Communities In Schools of Puyallup, Wash., students headed back to school this year with new backpacks, composition notebooks and pencils dona- ted through the “Fill the Canoe” supplies drive. The annual, community-wide event collects thousands of pounds of new school supplies, which are then matched pound for pound by Red Canoe Credit Union and donated to CIS of Puyallup to serve their highest-need students.

Throughout August drop-off locations were set up across the city. In-house employee drives were set up in office buildings to collect more donations.

Contributors found real canoes at some sites where they could drop off supplies appropriate for elementary, middle and high school students. The final tally was 3,799 pounds, a bounty of more than $36,650 worth of supplies that included 727 backpacks, more than 11,000 pencils, 3,125 spiral notebooks, 568 boxes of crayons, 448 three-ring binders and 1,184 glue sticks.

“A growing number of students in need benefit each year from the outpouring of generosity from our community. School supplies are basic learning tools integral to academic success, and items such as new backpacks help boost a child’s confidence at the start of a school year,” said Jan Mauk, executive director, CIS of Puyallup.

Collecting, weighing, sorting and inventorying, all done by CIS staff and volunteers, enabled the distribution of supplies to 31 schools to take place before the start of school.

Secretary Duncan, center, shows his support for the male students of the XY Zone leadership development program. Photo courtesy CIS of Central Texas

All the News That’s Fit to PrintThis past August, CIS President Dan Cardinali wrote a guest op-ed piece for The New York Times. The article, “How to Get Kids to Class,” appeared in the Aug. 25 edition of the newspaper, in the Opinion Pages section. Cardinali passionately addressed the issue of how to help kids in high-poverty regions overcome obstacles and stay in school, and outlined the role of Integrated Student Supports as a field CIS can champion and lead.

The guest op-ed was featured prominently on the home page of The New York Times’ website, where it received numerous page views. The opinion piece also sparked additional media interest, indicating the progress CIS is making in continuing to bring awareness to the work the organization does.

“This is proof positive that the aggressive media outreach we’ve begun is starting to pay dividends for the CIS brand,” said Matt Heller, executive vice president of marketing and communications. “I expected we would start to get some pickup because education is a hot-button issue and we have such a compelling story to tell. But in my wildest dreams I did not expect we would crack The New York Times this soon.”

To read the full article, follow this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/opinion/to-keep-poor-kids-in-school-provide-social-services.html

Communities In Schools of Georgia Announces New Leadership Communities In Schools of Georgia announced that Carol F. Lewis has been selected to lead the organization following the retirement of founding president, Neil Shorthouse, effective August 1, 2014.

Lewis is a 20-year veteran of CIS, having most recently served the past five years as chief operating officer at CIS of Georgia. She has held positions of increasing responsibility within CIS of Georgia regionally and locally, including serving as an executive director of a local affiliate and a fundraiser within the state office.

“I’m deeply honored to have this oppor- tunity to continue my life’s work in a new role within CIS,” Lewis, who holds a B.A. in sociology from Mercer University, stated. “It will be no easy feat following in the footsteps of Neil Shorthouse, who has been a mentor, leader and fellow advocate on behalf of children. I am prepared to lead this organization into its next evolution. CIS has a model that

is proven to work, and I look forward to expanding its impact in Georgia.”

Neil Shorthouse, Bill Milliken, founder and vice chairman of Communities In Schools, and the late David Lewis joined forces in 1971 to form the basis of an orga- nization dedicated to enabling more young people to be successful in school and in life. Shorthouse helped develop the national organization; supported the work of the budding national office and the new Communities In Schools national board; raised funds and, with David Lewis, helped build a strong program in Atlanta for others to visit and eventually replicate. Through the 1980s Shorthouse helped with the start-up of state offices in North and South Carolina, Florida and Georgia. CIS of Georgia has since become the nation’s largest state network of affiliates, proving that great leadership, past and present, will secure its success in the future.

With more than 20 years of service, Lewis will continue to provide leadership as the newly-appointed president of CIS of Georgia. Photo by Tiffani Bray

Spotlight on SuccessSeen and Heard

A Fill the Canoe drop-off location at the South Hill Mall on the first day of the drive. Photo by Michelle Ryder, Resource Coordinator, CIS of Puyallup, AmeriCorps VISTA

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Photo Essay – Summer InstituteSummon the Heroes

The Communities In Schools national office hosted its annual Summer Institute this past summer in Atlanta. The conference theme – Summon the Heroes – was captured perfectly in the snapshots taken by the network participants attending workshops and in the onsite photo booth.

“If I had to rate the Summer Institute on a scale of 1 to 10, it would be 100+,” said Cory K. Bennett, site coordinator, CIS of Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

SUMMER INSTITUTE 2014Communities In Schools

SUMMON THE HEROES

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Communities In Schools National Office2345 Crystal Drive, Suite 700Arlington, VA 22202

800-CIS-4KIDS (800-247-4543)www.communitiesinschools.org

EditorTracey Savell Reavis

ContributorsAlice Butler

Maya Ollie

Keven Ramirez

Suki Steinhauser

Arina Stopa

Inside CIS is published quarterly by Communities In Schools, Inc., 2345 Crystal Drive, Suite 700 Arlington, VA 22202.

©2014 Communities In Schools Inc. All rights reserved.

Newsletter designed by Ainsley Adao.

ATTENTION LOCAL AFFILIATES!Help us tell your story to a national audience. Send story submissions to [email protected]. Please include “Story Submission” in the subject line.

Employees from across the country travelled to Atlanta this past August to attend the 2014 Communities In Schools’ Summer Institute: Summon the Heroes. The biannual three-day event brings toge- ther site coordinators, program directors, site-level professionals and volunteers for a part conference, part networking, part educational experience. More than 500 staff members attended, enjoying the opportunity to meet fellow coworkers and participate in peer-to-peer discussions.

The Summer Institute was created to provide staff with additional resources, support and inspiration around the work they do to transform student’s lives.

The conference aligns with the national office’s increasing efforts to develop into a leading environment for learning and professional development.

“Each year that I attend the Summer Institute I leave knowing that we are part of something so big,” said Cassie Myers, site coordinator, Communities In Schools of Ottawa, Kan. “We have the opportunity to come together and begin relationships with other site coordinators who know and understand that what we are doing is no easy task. Helping kids in bad situations can seem hopeless. Summer Institute gives us hope as an organization.”

This year’s theme – Summon the Heroes – was specifically geared toward thanking and recognizing the practiti- oners who work directly with students. An agenda of panels, workshops and breakout sessions with topics ranging from critical race theory, to creating mentoring programs, to strategies for building resiliency, was specifically designed to provide site-level staff with the tools, techniques and best practices to further implement the Communities In School model with fidelity.

CIS Founder and Vice Chairman, Bill Milliken (left) and CIS national President, Dan Cardinali (center), are joined on stage by Talitha Haley, Roland Leos, Cheyenne Drayer and Jamal Tate during the alumni panel at the 2014 Summer Institute. Photo by Donna Bice

Communities In Schools’ Summer Institute Inspires