In 1972, in the basement of a modest home in Grant Park, Communities In Schools of Atlanta sparked a national movement to help at-risk kids stay in school and graduate.
Now, more than 50 years and 1.8 million students later, Communities In Schools is the nation’s largest student dropout prevention network, working with at-risk kids in 3,270 schools across 25 states and the District of Columbia.
Here in Atlanta where it all started, Communities In Schools of Atlanta will reach nearly 49,000 students in six metro school districts this year and continues to expand its mission as the need for student support deepens in an increasingly challenging environment for families and kids across the metro area.
“Students need our help now more than ever,” said Communities In Schools of Atlanta CEO Frank Brown. “There are so many factors weighing down our families. There are economic hardships, the fact that Atlanta’s income inequality measures so high, there is post-COVID learning loss, poor literacy rankings, high eviction rates in underserved communities with low-performing schools, violence in schools, and there are overwhelming obstacles that unfairly keep so many students from achieving their potential.”
To give at-risk kids a fighting chance to succeed in school and graduate, the Communities In Schools of Atlanta program places caring adults directly in schools to surround students with the academic, social, and emotional support they need.
School-based site coordinators work with the most challenged students to not only keep them on track with academics and behavior, but to ensure their basic human needs are met by supplying nutritious food, adequate clothing, and to provide emergency financial assistance to families for housing or utilities, for example. Importantly, they also build trust with students, becoming someone kids can truly count on.
The results? 99% of students in the Communities In Schools of Atlanta program remain in school and 97% graduate. Consider that 7,000+ students drop out of high school each year across the country and about 20 percent of students who enter high school don’t graduate within four years. Those numbers jump dramatically for Hispanic and African-American males.
Communities In Schools of Atlanta’s mission is to turn those statistics around for all students – to see success no matter the address, Brown says.
This year the organization will serve six new metro Atlanta schools and continues to expand its programming, growing its reach into the foster care system, increasing its focus on the specific needs of Hispanic students, and launching new efforts to follow alumni from high school into college.
Sticking with alumni through graduation and onto college is critical as they make that leap, says Brown. So many alumni are first-generation college students and may lack the support they need to make it on a college campus. Many kids are the sole provider in single-parent homes and going off to college is a difficult transition.
Communities In Schools of Atlanta recently launched a partnership with Gordon State College to place a site coordinator on campus to help students navigate not only their course loads, but life on their own, ensuring they have proper housing, adequate food, and successfully graduate with minimal to no debt.
“We are changing the trajectory of the lives of our students,” said Brown. “We have to understand their mindset and be prepared to empower them. We want to be sure we are creating a clear plan and path for success. We want our students to realize their full potential and to have their fair share of the American dream.”
The Communities In Schools of Atlanta program is a national model of success, inspiring a 2023 Harvard Business School case study on successful nonprofit leadership. But it is the kids that keep the leadership and staff digging deeper each year for the resources and support to reach all students in need.
This year the organization will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its Choose Success awards dinner. Each year the event provides critical funding for the Communities In Schools of Atlanta mission and highlights philanthropic luminaries and, most especially, inspiring students who are shining examples of the possibilities that become realities when someone cares enough to show them the way and stand beside them.
Check out the national documentary The Push featuring Communities In Schools of Atlanta. For more information about the organization and to support its vital mission, donate here.
