White House Officials & Local Leaders Host Forum on Integrated Student Supports
Los Angeles, Ca. (PRWEB) March 27, 2014 -- Today, Communities In Schools (CIS) and the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics (WHIEEH) hosted a national policy forum at Creative Artists Agency’s Los Angeles headquarters to discuss strategies to empower Hispanic students. The national and local education leaders in attendance discussed the efficacy of Los Angeles’ integrated student support (ISS) programs like CIS that have successfully increased achievement among young people in poverty, specifically Hispanic students.
ISS programs, which serve more than 1.5 million elementary and high school students nationwide, address both academic and non-academic barriers to student achievement by identifying individual student needs and utilizing community resources to meet them. Programs like this are critical for underprivileged minority students who lack access to basic necessities such as food, clothing, school supplies or even a home.
“CIS of Los Angeles has worked with local partners to provide needed resources and support to empower thousands of local students to stay in school and achieve in life,” said Dan Cardinali, president of Communities In Schools. “We are proud to partner with the White House to bring proven strategies like integrated student supports across the nation.
“As the largest ISS provider in the Los Angeles Unified School District, we are very pleased to see that our student-centric program continues to prove effective in reducing dropout rates across the region,” said Deborah Marcus, executive director of CIS of Los Angeles. “Our students have experienced firsthand the benefits of an integrated model, and it is important that state lawmakers address barriers to learning both inside and outside the classroom.”
Child Trends, a national research nonprofit, also presented its recently released report, Integrated Student Services: The Evidence, which affirms the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of programs like CIS in improving education outcomes and reducing disparities. The research establishes, for the first time, standards of practice for the ISS field.
"We can't argue with empirical research and evidence based results,” says LAUSD Superintendent, Dr. John Deasy. “Integrated student supports work. As LAUSD continues to embed student-centric approaches focused on increasing academic achievement, attendance, graduation, school climate, and post-secondary success, we applaud Communities In Schools for their local investment and partnership with our schools."
The CIS model has demonstrated 99% retention of potential dropouts, propelled 96% of eligible seniors to graduation, and successfully helped 97% of our students continue to the next grade. This makes CIS the most successful dropout prevention program amongst all fully scaled dropout prevention programs in the United States.
About Communities In Schools
Communities In Schools surrounds students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life. Through a school-based site coordinator, Communities In Schools connects students and their families to critical community resources, tailored to local needs. Working in over 2,400 schools and community-based sites, in the most challenged communities in 27 states and the District of Columbia, Communities In Schools serves 1.35 million young people and their families every year. It has been shown through an independent evaluation to be the nation’s only dropout prevention organization proven to both increase graduation rates and reduce dropout rates. Visit our website at http://www.communitiesinschools.org.
Dan Fuller, Vice President of Legislative Relations, Communities In Schools, +1 (703) 615-5417, [email protected]
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