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Ohio's public schools serve 1.6 million children - 90 percent of students in the state! What happens in the classroom has impacts far beyond the walls of the K-12 school building or higher ed lecture hall. So, on behalf of the 120,000 members of the Ohio Education Association, we're taking a deeper dive into some of the many education issues facing our students, educators, and communities. Originally launched in 2021 as Education Matters, Public Education Matters is your source for insightful conversations with the people who shape the education landscape in Ohio. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on Public Education Matters? Email us at educationmatters@ohea.org
Various student voices 0:08
Public education matters. Public education matters. Public education matters.
Jeff Wensing 0:15
This is Public Education Matters brought to you by the Ohio Education Association.
Katie Olmsted 0:26
Welcome back to Public Education Matters. I'm Katie Olmsted, and I'm part of the communications team for the Ohio Education Association, and it's nearly 120,000 members across the state. As we get into our first episode of the new year, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday break, and I hope you were all dealing well with being back from break. I know it can be hard. Listen, I love my job so so much, and I also have trouble mentally preparing myself to actually have to do it again after a break. So I get it, but let's be real. Schools across Ohio face major challenges getting some kids to come back any day, not just after a break. Chronic absenteeism is a very real problem in our state, with about one in four Ohio students considered chronically absent in the last school year, one in four Ohio students missing 10% or more of instructional time, missing big chunks of curriculum, missing opportunities to really excel in school and set themselves up for success in life. Getting more kids to show up more often is a really big priority across the state, and it's a priority for Communities in Schools of Ohio, a nonprofit that puts site coordinators directly in schools to connect students with essential community resources and to help remove barriers to learning. Communities in Schools works in partnership with Columbus, Southwestern City Schools, Whitehall, Garfield Heights, Maple Heights and other districts around the state, and they're looking to partner with even more public schools in the future. We sat down with the organization's executive director to learn more about how communities and schools programs are opening doors for students, and what can be done to get more students in their school buildings doors every day.
Adero Robinson 2:25
My name is Adero Robinson, and I'm the Chief Executive Officer with Communities in Schools of Ohio.
Katie Olmsted 2:32
What is Communities in Schools of Ohio?
Adero Robinson 2:35
So Communities in Schools of Ohio, or CIS of Ohio? We are a nonprofit organization that's part of a national network of affiliates that are designed to provide additional support services to students in schools that we partner with here in Ohio. We've been around since 1993 and we now serve in six cities across the state of Ohio, including Cleveland, Dayton, Central Ohio, Columbus, the Cleveland area, Toledo and Youngstown. And what we do is we provide support services, integrated student services for young people in grades K through 12. So we partner with schools, public and charter, and addressing what are some of those barriers, whether they be academic or life barriers that students may be experiencing that may be impacting their educational experience, whether it's related to attendance, behavior, academics, mental health services, basic needs, social emotional development. We have full time site coordinators in each one of the schools that we partner with, which there are 45 of them currently this school year, and then we partner with those schools and then identify young people that could benefit from having that additional support, that additional adult, helping that student do whatever challenge they may be experiencing.
Katie Olmsted 4:04
What difference does it make for those students to have that direct support?
Adero Robinson 4:09
So schools, even though they have a lot of capacity to do many things in support of students, it is always a benefit to provide additional support to teachers, principals to other support staff, whether they be social workers or school psychologists, school counselors, to ensure that those additional needs that students are experiencing, that there's an additional adult that has a different type of relationship, not only with the student, but we also connect with their families in a different way as also so bringing in community resources from outside of the school that could be a benefit, not only to individual students but the entire school population. So if there's a challenge that relates to attendance, let's say attendance is the need in any one particular school identifying what are the reasons why students are not attending school consistently? Could it be something related to what's going on at home? Is it transportation? Is there another mental health or physical health thing going on that the site coordinator can be that other support and resource if there's things going on with transient housing, maybe the family is experiencing couch surfing or having to move from this place to that place that disrupts that student's educational experience, going in and out of school, missing days, missing the bus, having to connect with their siblings, who may need to go to the school early and they're tardy every day or there maybe there's some other social factors that the young person is challenged with that our site coordinators can identify. Can give you some examples of what that looks like in real time. So I'll give you an example of a young student. This was a middle school student who father passed away, so she ended up having to leave her home. She had missed a lot of schools. She had to transfer schools and then come back. And she was just missing a lot of days. Her GPA went from being fairly strong to being extremely low, experiencing mental health challenges as a result of moving from her primary residence, living with family members coming back, having this death in her family, the site coordinator was able to provide additional support services, more enhanced services that identified what this young person needed in order for them to have a more stable home life, because her parents were gone and connecting with family members was a challenge, and the school at this particular time didn't have as much capacity to serve this student the same way that the site coordinator did right the site coordinator worked with the school counselor. They worked with the social worker, did home visits and provided those additional support services. As it relates to transportation. She couldn't get to school because of she moved so far out from her primary residence. Access to food was a challenge, because trying to identify those family members that didn't have didn't have the resources for that young person to access to food, mental health services, she experienced trauma. How are we helping that young person with that trauma? So after some extensive support, that young person, you can see her GPA coming up, her confidence coming back, more consistently, coming to school. That's just one example of how a site coordinator can be that effective in impacting a young student's life. But the unique thing about our program, even though we have this standard way of how we work across all of our schools, it can be catered to different schools. So what you're looking at for an elementary and an urban area in the Cleveland area might look different from something different down here in central Ohio. So it's really a holistic type of services that we provide.
Katie Olmsted 8:16
And I think that reflects the fact that there is no one size fits all solution, and no one size fits all. Reason for why we have students who are chronically absent. Unfortunately, I think for a lot of it across the board, the one thing that is consistent is that it really hurts their ability to learn if you're missing a lot of instruction. And you mentioned, you know, a lot of schools don't have the capacity. I mean, you send a letter home, but it sounds like that ongoing relationship with not just the student, but the family has to be a big part of that equation.
Adero Robinson 8:52
And that's you said the optimal word there relationship everything is at the heart of building a relationship with young people and getting them to be able to trust that you are in their corner. You're an advocate for them. Here are some opportunities and resources. Hey, we noticed that you're you may be short in terms of your credits towards graduation. What do we need to do to get you there? We've noticed, you know, one of the reasons why you're missing school, maybe there are some behavior challenges. How can we work with you and maybe some other students that may be experiencing something similar to ensure that those behavior challenges go from here down to a much lower level, so you're not seeing suspensions in school and out of school, you're not getting letters home or calls home to mom and dad or grandmother, so that you can be more consistent in your academics, and how you're showing up and having that adult there is checking on you every day. You're getting off the bus, you're walking into the building. Hey, Adero, how you doing? How are things going? We're going to have a good day today. Hey, we're going to have our time later this afternoon. We're going to go over this academic thing, or there's going to be this activity we're doing um, so that's a really good piece of building the relationships with young people, because without that, even for teachers, you got to be able to be consistent, so that students can trust you and know that there are advocates for them.
Katie Olmsted 8:52
Are there challenges getting some families on board with it? I know with chronic absenteeism, one of the one of the challenges, is that some families just they don't necessarily see it as such a big deal there. I wish I could cite the exact study I was looking at, but it was talking about that's one of the challenges, is an attitudinal challenge. Obviously, there are so many challenges across the board, but one of them is, while they miss a little school, it's it's not a huge deal.
Adero Robinson 10:38
I have heard some anecdotes, and even from some parents, specifically for some of the younger kids, like those in kindergarten, who say, well, it's okay if my young person misses a few days because they're not really in school yet, right? Kindergarten is a place where, you know, they come to play. They don't necessarily, they're not getting graded on anything, but we know that that K through three experience is very important, starting at pre K and K, and if guardians and parents have the attitude or the thinking pattern that well, they can miss a day here, a day there. They don't, they're not really missing what you would think of a traditional school. Well, they are right, because that those things are foundational. Now, when you see them start to get into the first, second, third, elementary school grades, you'll see that that chart, you know, it'll rise a little bit because, you know, the parents are responsible for getting them school. And you might see it go a little bit dip a little bit in middle school, and it might go up a little bit as they start to get to high school, and then it might dip a little bit again. So it just really depends on where they are in that continuum. Older children could have a little bit more agency in terms of, you know, my attitude towards school, because it changes as they get older. And you really have to kind of address, well, am I not coming to school because I don't like school, or I don't see the purpose of school, or it's not really something that's going to benefit me later on. You may see some of those in some of the young people, some of those attitudes and young people, but you also may be seeing like some things, I'm just not feeling it. I'm not I don't understand it. Doesn't the atmosphere isn't for me, so I don't necessarily want to come every day there's that piece, and then there's the barriers transportation. You know, maybe there's some bullying going on, or maybe I'm having some social, emotional or mental health challenges that are prohibited me from being engaged in the school, right? So I wouldn't use the word apathy, I would use the more use the word disengagement for some of the young people, even when they're in school, they may not be engaged, physically, they may be there, but mentally and emotionally and socially they may be just kind of meandering along.
Katie Olmsted 12:55
I mean, knowing what we know about the trends in chronic absenteeism and where we are post pandemic, it's still very, very high, if we're doing this on a student by student basis, trying to find out what the challenge is, what the barrier is, and how do we address that? How can you do that with so many students needing the support?
Adero Robinson 13:15
I think having really strong school partners is key, and in my experience, in listening to our site coordinators and staff, and connecting with some of the principals and teachers and hearing from superintendents about our work, having really strong school partners is key, and the site coordinators having strong relationships with the principals, assistant principals, other school leaders, and what it looks like in that that three tier level of support. So if you think about those three tier levels, you have tier one, which is whole school support. How is the site coordinator? How are they tapping into what the school needs? So they're doing an actual assessment of that is the school really challenged with attendance? How can we work with what's already going on in the school and what the school needs, and what can we help bring in to support what those leaders are doing? And you go down to a second tier, what are we looking like in terms of maybe there's some consistent things among some of the smaller groups of students, or subset of students, that we can provide some support in, maybe something around young males. There was one school in particular that I'm thinking about. There was a lot of fighting going on between young males that was an issue in terms of climate and culture. What's the assessment on that? Are these young people getting suspended? Is it causing a lot of challenges with attendance, or how they're showing up? What is causing all of this? And the one side coordinator at the school I'm speaking of, he created a program for some of the young males where they can be in a space and address why these things are happening, right? And based off of his work. Work and the partnership with the school counselors and other teachers, they saw their incidents of behavior go down like 40% and that was the principal's quote as a middle school here in central Ohio. That was her she's like, this type of thing is what we need more of to see those those gains. And then you funnel even down more to what are those individual students? We call students on our case load, case managed students where we're identifying whether it's around attendance, academics, behavior, basic needs, coming up with actual goals for those young people, assessing what they need, in partnership with the school. So based off of data, observation, recommendation, referrals, and then connecting with the parents to be able to work with those young people to address those challenges. So it's really, truly a partnership, and the schools are doing a great job in their space, we're here to help bring some additional resources to bear.
Katie Olmsted 16:00
How is this sustainable? Public schools across Ohio are facing some big funding decisions. You're a nonprofit with donations and things like that, but everyone's making hard choices right now.
Adero Robinson 16:13
You're absolutely right. Nonprofits are really having to make hard choices, and we're not immune to that as well. The way we're funded is so if you had a about a pie chart in front of you, about 50% of our revenue comes through our partnership with schools themselves. So like a fee for service type of activity, however, we split the cost of having that site coordinator in the school with those schools so that they're not bearing the full burden of partnering with us. So we want to be good partners in that space. And then our team, including myself, we're charged with fundraising for the remaining 50% which could include public or private contributions, individual contributions, as well grant writing, corporations, foundations, that type of thing. But for the schools, depending on what their budgets are, many of their dollars to help support a program such as ours in their particular buildings would be one of the title funding streams, or in some cases, it would even be school wellness streams as well. So they would identify where those dollars would come from, and then we would come up with an MOU, and then we would coordinate what that payment looks like, but it's designed to keep a little burden on the school funding, because I know it's can be a little challenging. And then we're committed to fundraising the remaining dollars. Yes.
Katie Olmsted 17:40
And what do you tell donors about why their investment in these schools is so worth it?
Adero Robinson 17:45
Well, it's it's really the return on investment of the young people, whether they're in elementary, middle or high. So we're working towards, what are those competencies that we're partnering with the school, that we're facilitating with the young people that allow them to graduate on time, on track to be productive citizens in their community. We're building out our workforce development component as well. So how are we preparing our young people as they matriculate through how are they getting themselves ready for life after they leave the educational experience. How are we helping with those different competencies for the academics coming to school, consistently having more positive behaviors, positive mental attitudes, positive relationships, not only with adults, but with their peers. We feel that our site coordinators are really good at bringing those resources to bear and connecting them in a way that not only a lot of the students in the school can take advantage of, but then those ones that really need that individual case management and support.
Katie Olmsted 19:01
Chronic absenteeism is a big priority for the state right now, the governor, Department of Education and Workforce have both said when those last rounds of state report cards came out that we have a lot of work to do.
Adero Robinson 19:12
Yes.
Katie Olmsted 19:13
What can the state do to support the work towards reducing chronic absenteeism?
Adero Robinson 19:20
I think students need to see that, what is the return on their investment for coming to school? I think the students need to be able to see more of, okay, if I'm going to invest in coming to school every day, what is the angle for me if I'm not going to college or I'm not, you know, I don't that's not in my future. What is the other path for me? What are those pathways? Is it, do I go to a trade school? Do I am I prepared for any sort of IT credential, or this, or nursing, or whatever that may be? And I know that ODEW is really working on building out what that those pathways will be looking like in partnership with the school districts. So I think. Being even more, communicating that more to the students as they matriculate through elementary to high school, showing what that looks like in relation to their experience once they get that piece of that that graduation certificate. I'm not sure some because I've had students say to me, I have no idea what I'm going to do, and that's okay. Then people, you know, it's okay because I didn't know what I wanted to do after I had no clue, but at least being because it's imperative, they're going to have to have more options, because the world is changing the way the work is changing as well. So are they prepared for that? So I think being able to communicate the importance of going to school, fund schools in a way that they can ensure that young people are coming consistently. What are those incentives? And then, what is the pathway? What are the pathways for young people as they matriculate, whether they be through internships or this or about and a lot of school districts are doing that, but I think the folks at the government level really be more laser focused and identifying what those opportunities and pathways are. Provide the dollars to help support them, and provide the dollars to help support other entities that are looking to partner with school districts to help, you know, supplement what they're already doing. So I think those are three ways that that can be a benefit for young folks.
Katie Olmsted 21:29
And what's the pathway and the opportunity forward for communities and schools? What do you see the growth here? I mean, the need is very, very big.
Adero Robinson 21:38
The need is very big. Yes, that's a great question. Right now, we're serving in the six cities across the state, and we're in 45 schools now, grades K through 12, we are working in public. We are working in charter but I would love to potentially see us look at rural opportunities. I was, I was talking with a rural school district in like the southern part of Ohio, and a lot of the resources that may or may not be available in urban and suburban districts aren't available in their district. Transportation is becoming more of a challenge. Access to food as factories close, as job opportunities sort of have left their communities. One of the staff people was telling me that a lot of their students aren't feeling like, what's my What can I do next? There's no opportunities here. What am I going to do? So we're thinking about, how do we partner with a rural district that may need some additional support in their school and linkages to those resources right? As great as the work they're doing with parents and students. They're like, well, there's something else we could be doing to be helping our young people. We have some suburban, we have urban. I would love to see more rural, and I would love to add more schools so that we can get up and serve more students, get our numbers up and serve more young people. That's the goal, but it's all contingent upon a lot of different factors, mainly funding and other resources.
Speaker 1 21:38
And so is it is the case with all things public schools, lots of lots of it is contingent on the funding and the other factors. But I thank you so much for the work you're doing with public school students now.
Adero Robinson 22:55
Our founder he founded this organization back in the late 70s, I believe. And you know, one of the quotes on the main website is the foundation is relationships and partnerships with students and schools and other entities to bring resources to students and families that need them. You know, it's always great to have additional adults working with young people.
Katie Olmsted 23:45
If you would like to support communities and schools of Ohio, or look into having communities and schools work with your district in the future, you can learn more at ciskids.org The link is in the show notes for this episode, along with Adero's email address for anyone who wants to talk about opportunities, or even just get CIS's data to help guide work with your students. You can also email me anytime with feedback on the podcast or ideas for future episodes. Just send me a message at educationmatters@ohea.org, we're back here next week with another insightful conversation about meeting all students needs in our public schools. This time looking at the importance of high quality gifted education programs. Make sure you subscribe to public education matters wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss that discussion or any other conversation this season, as new episodes continue to drop every Thursday, because in Ohio, public education matters.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai