Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

MISSION, March 30 - State lawmakers may recognize Communities In Schools as the best and most efficient dropout program in Texas by pumping in $30 million this legislative session.

That was the message delivered by state Rep. Veronica Gonzales as she gave the keynote speech at the 20th anniversary dinner of the Communities in Schools program in Hidalgo County at the Cimarron Club in Mission on Saturday evening.

“Your hard work and success is well noticed at the state Capitol and this session there are several bills that have been filed to make sure that your program continues strongly,” Gonzales, D-McAllen, told Hidalgo County CIS case workers at the dinner.

“There is one bill that requires at least $30 million to be allocated to CIS for funding and program expansion in 2010 and 2011.”

Gonzales said she has faith that her colleagues on both sides of the political aisle will “support this public education initiative because it is working.”

Gus Kennedy, executive director of CIS in Hidalgo County, said if the program does receive $30 million, the number of at risk students across Texas who will receive one-on-one mentoring will double to roughly half a million.

“We are ready to rock and roll with that,” Kennedy told the Guardian, in an exclusive interview after the dinner had concluded. He said that by 2011, 40 to 50 schools in Hidalgo County would be signed up to work with CIS on dropout prevention.

Communities In Schools was started by Bill Milliken in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1977. Milliken was an at-risk student himself. The five basic elements of the program are ensuring a one-on-one relationship between student and mentor, providing a safe place to learn and grow, providing a healthy start and healthy future, providing a marketable skill for the student and a chance for the student to give back to community.

CIS was up and running in some of the bigger Texas cities like Dallas and Houston for about six years before it came to Hidalgo County in 1989. Kennedy, a former Catholic priest, has run the program in the county for 17 years. It also operates in Cameron County.

The program works through CIS putting a professional case worker on a school’s campus. Referrals to CIS are made by principals, counselors and teachers. The case worker makes an assessment of the at-risk student and devises an individual plan to get the student back into school and on track towards graduation. CIS’s central office then implements the plan by finding a mentor in the community who volunteers to give one-on-one support to the student. Hidalgo County CIS currently has about 600 mentors.

Kennedy said the impact of the program is incredible, especially in Hidalgo County, which has a huge dropout problem. He said 50 percent of the county’s students in 8th grade will not complete their high school education.

“There’s a huge truancy problem in the Valley and every day they are not at school, the Valley loses $50 a day,” Kennedy said. “They just disappear. They must be somewhere. They are not all in Iraq.”

In western part of the county the problem is most acute because of the larger migrant population, Kennedy explained. He said there are some children in La Joya who get to see McAllen for the first time in their lives because of CIS.

“It’s heartfelt to see people come out and support the kids, people who do not even have kids offer to be mentors and it is all on a voluntary basis. They give their own time and money, they take the kids to the movies,” Kennedy said. “Every day I am here I see different aspects of what we can do to change that kids’ life.”

In her speech, Gonzales recalled Hillary Clinton’s comment about it taking a village to raise a child. Gonzales said that was true in her life as she lost her mother when she was 14. She recalled the help her teachers, her grandmother, her tias y tios, the Lions Club and LULAC provided. “They said, ‘you can do anything you want to do if you work hard and believe in yourself.’ I still believe that to this day,” she said.

Pointing to the “vital” work CIS does, Gonzales cited a Texas Education Agency report which showed two million children in the state are at risk of not completing high school this year.

“Many of these students have no one at home who will ask about their homework or even make sure they made it to school that day. That is where programs like Communities In Schools can fill the gaps and take these students in and make sure they do not fall between the cracks,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales said that in Texas, Hispanic students are the least likely to get a high school diploma. In 2004, 3.9 percent of students dropped out of high school early. Among Hispanic students it was seven percent and in Hidalgo County it was 13 percent, Gonzales said, citing TEA numbers.

“These numbers have severe consequences for all of us,” Gonzales said, pointing to a 2008 report that showed that the U.S. will lose $319 billion in lost wages throughout the lifetime of those who do not complete their high school education.

“They are more likely to be unemployed, in poor health, live in poverty, rely on public assistance, and are eight times more likely to be incarcerated than those with a high school diploma,” Gonzales said. “You have all seen the bumper sticker, ‘You think education is expensive, try ignorance.’ People laugh at that but there’s a lot of truth to that.”

Gonzales also quoted statistics from the Silent Epidemic program run by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which showed that the government could collect $45 billion in taxes if the nation’s dropout problem was reduced by half. There would be less need for public health and assistance and less crime also, she said.

The statistics are all more reason to get behind the Communities in Schools program, Gonzales said. She pointed to figures from 20005 which showed that 97 percent of the students in the program successfully completed their school year.

“The Communities In Schools model has been nationally recognized. It is one of a handful dropout programs proven to work in schools and the only one shown to increase the graduation rates according to a review by the Department of Education,” Gonzales said.

Interviewed by the Guardian after the CIS dinner, Kennedy said CIS was case managing about 3,000 students in Hidalgo County right now, ranging in age from five to 21. Other aspects of the group’s work, he said, include assisting in a special school set up by PSJA ISD to fight gang infestation, providing three food banks, health care assistance in the western part of the county and partnering with the Department of Homeland Security on drug prevention.
 
Kennedy said CIS was needed in Hidalgo County as much as any other part of the nation.

“The demographics that surround us are phenomenal. We probably have the highest unemployment rate, not only in Texas but in the United States right now. Most of the kids we serve are impoverished; they fall below the poverty line. And 57 percent come from single parent families. The demographics are pretty dire against the kids making it out of the school,” Kennedy explained.

One statistic that strikes a chord with Kennedy is a survey CIS conducted in Hidalgo County last year. Seventy five percent of kids who come to CIS have parents who do not even review their child’s school report card. “It’s a phenomenal. When you don’t look at your report card, academics is not a priority. It’s a terrible statistic,” he said.

Kennedy said he was pleased with the bipartisan support emerging for CIS. He noted that state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, chair of the Senate Education Committee, had set aside $500,000 in the state budget to do an independent audit of CIS because she wanted to increase funding for the program. The audit found that CIS is the number one dropout prevention program in the state. Not only that, but CIS more than matches the state dollars it gets with local contributions.

“We are proud of our record with kids staying in school and graduating. They have the same dreams you and I had - they just do not have the opportunities we had. We try to remove obstacles so they do have that opportunity,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy also said he was pleased to have received the support of the Texas Association of Business. “It’s a great feat. For a Republican-based organization to say they are going to support this program is a big, huge deal for us,” he said.

Asked what the secret to CIS is, Kennedy responded, “love and relationship.” He pointed out, with no disrespect to teachers, that his case workers earn about $15,000 less than school district personnel.

“We have no computers and no programs. It is nothing short of a one-on-one relationship between a child and an adult who is at least rationally concerned with a child making it beyond the gravel pit,” Kennedy said. “I tell our case managers every day, tell the kids they look pretty today. They will come back tomorrow to hear the same thing.”

Kennedy said the results are amazing. “If they stay in school, their grades will go up, automatically. We are not teachers. We have nothing to do with the TAKS test and yet the TAKS scores go up, the grades go up.”

CIS has a great incentive to get students back in school because its funding depends upon it. The group must secure an 85 percent attendance and behavior rate, and ensure that grades in the core courses rise by two percent. Its graduation rate for students in their senior year is 90 percent.

“We have educated people, people with a heart, who do not get a lot of money,” Kennedy said of his case workers. “They are making a difference, if you meet them you will be thoroughly convinced this is what should be happening in every school system.”

Looking back on his 17 years with CIS, Kennedy said it has been a remarkable ride.

“It’s been a great run. I would not give it up for the world. When I came to CIS we were sitting on orange boxes,” Kennedy said. “Thanks to the community, we have grown since then and now we have state legislators touting the program. I have no regrets and I hope to be here for the rest of my life.”