Tag Archives: Kent School Services Network

School News Network: Video featuring parents encourages more to get involved

Citizen Journalism, ,

By Erin Albanese 

School News Network

 

“I am Godwin,” said parent Kristina Berry.

 

“I am Godwin,” said parent Glenn Tran.

 

“I am Godwin,” said parent Serida Scott.

 

“Soy Godwin,” said parent Veronica Soto.

 

Parents’ voices unite in an uplifting video that shares their experiences in the district and encourages others to get involved.

 

Godwin Heights is celebrating parents’ involvement in everything from helping their children with homework to volunteering in schools and in athletics. The district’s Parent Action Council, which includes parents and staff members, recently created the video for the district website.

 

Veronica Soto said she benefits from being involved at Godwin schools and helps serve as a liaison to other Spanish-speaking parents

Goals of the PAC are to engage parents in their children’s education, increase achievement among English learners and connect families and children with school and community resources.

 

“We want to be able to support parents and for them to feel empowered. We value that relationship,” said Director of Instruction Michelle Krynicki.

 

Soto, mom to Marla, a senior; Carlos, a seventh-grader; and Valeria, a third-grader; is happy to help spread the message.

 

“We, as parents, are mirrors and we reflect the importance to our kids in setting examples,” she said, translated from Spanish by Lysette Castillo, the district’s parent and community liaison. Soto is known as a “star volunteer,” regularly lending a hand at the high school, middle school and North Godwin Elementary School.

 

Parents are encouraged to volunteer even if they don’t speak English, which is a common barrier that can cause parents to feel intimidated, Krynicki said.

 

“You don’t have to be here every day, but can you be a reading buddy? Can you make copies and put packets together? Could you put labels on fliers? There are lots of ways to be involved.”

From left, Duane Bacchus, high school Kent School Services Network community coordinator, and Lysette Castillo, the district’s parent and community liaison, talk with Veronica Soto during a Parent Action Council meeting

 

Powerful Voices

 

With filming by Duane Bacchus, high school Kent School Services Network community coordinator, and Noah DeSmit, who works in the Grand Rapids Community College media department, parents in the video speak about the  benefits of being involved, for themselves and their children. A diverse group, they represent the multi-cultural district.

 

“We have some parents who are very involved. We feel like they experience a great benefit from being involved,” Bacchus said, about the idea for the video. “The discussion came up, ‘What can do to get more parents to experience what these parents now do?

 

“Someone spoke up: ‘We need to get those parents to speak out. We need to get them to share their stories. … Let’s get parents to have a voice.”

 

“I’ve benefited because I’m more involved with what’s going on in school,” Soto said. “I know what’s going on and I’ve been able to collaborate and get to know the staff and the people in the school.”

 

Castillo said Soto serves an important role for the district as a conduit to other Spanish-speaking parents. “She is the informed that informs the rest,” Castillo said.  “The parents talk to her and she brings it to us.”

 

Martha Ibanez, mother of Jose, a sophomore; Emma, a fourth-grader; and Kevin, a third-grader, is also a great example of a parent who makes a difference in the schools, staff members said. While too shy to be in the video, she helped plan it as a member of the PAC.

 

“My children are aware I’m present, and even though I don’t speak English the school finds a way to communicate everything going on,” she said. “It has benefited me to be more informed about what’s going on in their education.”

 

Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.

Martha Ibanez chats with Mindy Lange, an English language-learner teacher

School News Network: Be There: Absence is Dead End

Citizen Journalism, , , ,
Across Kent ISD, approximately 13 percent of students are chronically absent

By Ron Koehler

School News Network

 

Turns out, comedian and director Woody Allen was pretty much right when he said 80 percent of success is showing up. In school, as in life, absence is a dead end.

 

Kent ISD and its member superintendents in 2016 adopted a common definition of truancy as 10 unexcused absences, and chronic absenteeism as missing more than 10 percent of scheduled school time. For an entire school year, that would be 18 days or more absent, whether excused or unexcused. This has been in effect since the beginning of the 2016-17 school year.

 

While truancy is well known and understood, chronic absenteeism is less familiar, as most absences are excused by parents and, until recently, were rarely challenged by educators. That began to change approximately a decade ago through the work of education researcher Hedy Chang, who is now the executive director of Attendance Works, a national nonprofit seeking to help schools and communities combat chronic absenteeism.

 

Chang’s research led to the publication in 2008 of “Present, Engaged and Accounted For: The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades.” This report found chronically absent students — those who miss 10 percent or more of school — do worse academically. It also revealed that one in 10 kindergarten and first-grade students nationwide miss nearly a month of school each year. In some cities, the rate is as high as one in four elementary students.

 

Across Kent ISD, approximately 13 percent of students are chronically absent. Like the national studies, the prevalence of chronic absenteeism varies widely from school building to building and district to district but, in virtually every instance, it is greater in buildings and communities serving the economically disadvantaged.

 

The effects of chronic absenteeism are profound. Kent ISD researcher Sunil Joy found these students are much less likely to become proficient in math or reading. Just one in four are likely to be proficient in math at eighth grade. Worse, low-income students who are chronically absent have just a 10 percent chance of being proficient. Even more startling is the effect on African-American students, with just 3 percent likely to be proficient if they are chronically absent.

 

Although proficiency levels are somewhat higher for early literacy among chronically absent children, the numbers are just as stark — and the consequences may be more damaging. Just 40 percent of children with this level of absenteeism in their kindergarten through second-grade experience can be expected to show proficiency on third-grade reading tests. Those numbers fall to just 20 percent for low-income students and 10 percent for African Americans. The probable proficiency rate for Hispanic students is slightly above the African-American rate but below the overall low-income proficiency levels for chronically absent students.

 

Our districts are working hard to get at this problem. The nearly 50 school buildings within the Kent School Services Networkhave a laser focus on addressing the barriers to attendance for students. The social workers and clinicians of KSSN work to identify and attack domestic issues ranging from mental health to inadequate clothing. This work has been underway for a decade and is cited as a national example by the Attendance Works organization as a success story. So, too, is the “Strive for Less than 5” attendance campaign created by the Grand Rapids Public Schools, which is now being studied for implementation across all 20 districts in Kent ISD.

 

The value of the Strive For Less Than 5 campaign is its uniform message to all children, families and community partners. Attendance is important, and parents and their children should strive for fewer than five absences a year.

 

So, with a nod to Woody, let’s all make an effort to Be There. Be in attendance. Showing up is a big part of life, and success. But let’s make it 90 percent instead of 80.

 

Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.

School News Network: Are we caring for our children? Not well enough

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New statistics on children in poverty highlight schools’ continuing challenge to meet all students’ needs.

By Charles Honey

School News Network

 

When Carol Paine-McGovern sees child poverty continuing to rise in Kent County, she takes some comfort in the work local schools and their communities are doing to relieve its burden on students. She’s intimately involved in that work as executive director of the Kent School Services Network, a social-services support system serving 39 schools in eight school districts.

 

Yet when she saw the latest local and statewide numbers on poverty and child well-being released today, Paine-McGovern again was reminded how very far we still have to go.

 

“It tells a profound story of a shift that has happened,” Paine-McGovern said of 2017 Kids Count in Michigan, an annual report on child and family health, education and economic security. “When you observe it in your own community, it really hits hard.”

 

She spoke of the continuing rise of children ages 0-17 living in poverty and its attendant challenges. The grim trends were to be discussed this morning in a press conference in Grand Rapids.

 

More than one in five Michigan children, just over 22 percent, lived in poverty in 2015 — a 15 percent rate increase since 2008, according to the report by the Michigan League for Public Policy. The rates were substantially worse for African-American children (47 percent) and Latinos (30 percent) than for whites (15 percent).

 

Although Kent County was slightly below the statewide figures, its 19.1 percent child poverty rate was up by nearly 5 percent from 2008, when the rate was 18.2 percent. Further, the 47 percent of Kent students receiving free or reduced lunches was a 21 percent rate jump since 2008, and exceeded the statewide rate of 46 percent.

 

Such sobering statistics represent nearly 30,000 students walking into Kent County classrooms, trying to learn the things that could help lift them out of poverty.

 

“When you go in schools and see the bright shiny faces and realize everything else that is going on in their lives, we have to figure out how to make things better for a large number of children,” Paine-McGovern said.

 

Mirroring Statewide Trends

 

The magnitude of the challenges is heightened by disparity. In an overall ranking of child well-being in 82 of Michigan’s 83 counties, the report places Kent County 27th. Neighboring Ottawa County is first, with 9 percent of its children living in poverty — less than half Kent’s rate.

 

Yet the report also shows Kent County’s children are far from alone in their struggles: 72 state counties saw child poverty increase, 79 an increase in free and reduced lunch, and 58 an increase in confirmed cases of child abuse and neglect. Kent saw a sharp increase in the latter, along with more low-birthweight babies and inadequate prenatal care.

 

Other local trends were more encouraging, including a drop in teen births and the percentage of students not graduating on time.

 

But poverty continues to permeate thousands of children’s lives, and challenges schools’ efforts to “level the playing field” for them, Paine-McGovern said. She noted that in more than half of Kent County’s 230 school buildings, the free and reduced-lunch rate exceeds the state average.

 

“A lot of schools out there are trying to educate children, when poverty is a consistent theme in their lives,” she said. “How do we as a community pull together to figure out how we can help children learn and be successful and work out of poverty? On the flipside, what are we doing for those families consistently, generation after generation, living in poverty? Those are the hard questions.”

 

Help for Struggling Families

 

Kent School Services Network works to answer some of those questions, not just in the urban districts but suburban and rural communities. Here, as statewide, poverty knows no boundaries.

 

At Kenowa Hills’ Alpine Elementary School, set amid the rolling fruit orchards of Northwest Kent County, KSSN came on board in 2014-15. Since then students and families have gotten help with everything from food, clothing and eyeglasses to housing and state assistance programs.

 

A school-community coordinator, mental-health clinician and Department of Health and Human Services worker help meet the needs of Alpine’s 375 students. About 75 percent of them receive free or reduced lunch, and in the fall many Latino children come from migrant families who work in the orchards.

 

Principal Jason Snyder said KSSN has helped students with chronic attendance problems get to school, increased communication with parents, and made school a better experience for students from struggling families.

 

“That they don’t have to worry about what to eat for dinner or where to stay for the night is definitely to going to help in the classroom,” Snyder said.

 

From the farm fields of Kenowa, Sparta and Cedar Springs to the city streets of Grand Rapids, Kentwood and Wyoming, poverty remains a perennial challenge to schools, Paine-McGovern said.

 

“When Kids Count comes out every year it’s always a rude awakening — that we don’t rest, there’s more work to be done.”

School News Network: ACA repeal threatens student academic achievement

3-bottom, Education, , ,
Michigan’s recent ranking in the national Kids Count assessment of children’s wellbeing was 32nd among the states.

By Ron Koehler

School News Network

Lost in the debate surrounding the repeal of the Affordable Care Act is the potentially disastrous effect dramatic reductions in Medicaid funding will have on health care for children, one of the few universally recognized success stories in health care coverage over the last 20 years.

Congress in 1997, after rejecting the universal health care reform proposed by then President Bill Clinton, coalesced behind the Children’s Health Insurance Program in agreement that early health care is critical to children’s future success. Since then, the uninsured rate among children has fallen from 14 percent to less than 4.5 percent.

Combined with increased Medicaid coverage and the extension of health care to millions of uninsured through the Affordable Care Act, the percentage of children who are uninsured has fallen dramatically. Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute reports the impact of extending insurance to parents is so great that “a child was eight times more likely to have public insurance if their parent had public insurance, when compared to a child whose parent was uninsured.”

While the impact of poverty on educational performance remains a subject of debate, the effect of health care on student performance is not.  A Seattle study conducted last year concluded “fewer than 15 percent of students with zero health risks were at academic risk, (but) more than half of students with 11 or more health risks were at risk of failing.”

The Georgetown University Health Policy Institute concludes “The most profound impact of the cuts to health coverage could be a decline in student achievement. Research shows us that students eligible for Medicaid are more likely to graduate from high school and complete college than students without access to health care.”

Children with chronic pain, dental neglect and other health concerns cannot focus on their education.  In this community, philanthropic organizations led by the Grand Rapids Community Foundation more than a decade ago came together with the county, schools, health and human service agencies to create the the Kent School Services Network. KSSN provides an array of health and human services for students and their families directly in the school building, using community school coordinators to identify issues impeding student. Medicaid funds are used in these settings to provide health and human services to qualifying students.

KSSN, a model for Governor Snyder’s Pathways to Potential program, and other programs like it have been so successful that policy makers now consider these strategies as evidence-based interventions for school improvement planning and reducing achievement gaps for ethnic and economically disadvantaged student populations.

Deep cuts in Medicaid funding contemplated in the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act could result in the loss of health care for tens of thousands of children in Michigan, and it could also force legislators to scale back the Children’s Health Insurance Program, especially if funding is reduced or curtailed by Congress when the program comes up for renewal in September of this year.

Our children deserve better. Children who are in pain, without treatment, or children who suffer the strain of family members with untreated disease or illness, do not have the same opportunity to succeed as those who are free of  those burdens.

Michigan’s recent ranking in the national Kids Count assessment of children’s wellbeing was 32nd among the states. Access to health care was one of the few bright spots, with a state ranking of 17th. Our educational performance was 41st.

We cannot afford to fall backward. We must improve educational performance if we are to restore any portion of Michigan’s past prominence as the engine that drove the nation’s economy. Accessible and affordable health care is essential to the success of our children, to our employers, and to our economy.

School News Network: School barbershop builds self-esteem, community

3-bottom, City of Wyoming, , ,
Senior Lazevious Steele gets a haircut from Duane Bacchus (Photo courtesy of School News Network)

By Erin Albanese

School News Network

 

Lazevious Steele sat snugly in a barber chair as Duane Bacchus used a razor to perfect his fade. The next day, Lazevious and other seniors walked across the stage sporting fresh haircuts to receive their high school diplomas.

 

Bacchus, a Kent School Services Network community coordinator, had opened the high school’s new barbershop — inside the men’s dressing room attached to the high school auditorium — for the first time the day before graduation, sprucing up seniors with free haircuts before their big send-off.

 

Next school year he plans to open twice weekly for boys to come in for a trim, and to participate in the ages-old style of barbershop banter that occurs when men gather for haircuts. Bacchus, whose job is to connect students and families with resources, has always included his own style of conversation and counseling in his duties. With the shop he’s adding a cool spin on how he serves Godwin Heights: a “neighborhood” barber where all are welcome, just like those he is used to.

 

“The barbershop has always been a place where nothing is off limits,” said Bacchus, who remembers “dying of laughter” from the conversations he heard in barbershops as a child. “There was a lot of wisdom and honest talk.”

 

Senior Gregory Sloan got a fresh style for graduation, thanks to Ace of Faces barber Chris Turner (Photo courtesy of School News Network)

Talking (Barber)shop
Bacchus, who cut friends’ hair in college for money, said he already regularly cuts several of his students’ hair. He had the idea of opening an in-school barbershop as a way to incentivize good behavior and build relationships.

 

With full support from the administration, he recruited his own barber, Chris Turner, from Ace of Fades in Grand Rapids, and another local barber, Miguel Estilo, who works at Maily’s Beauty Salon, to volunteer. Masonic Grand Rapids Lodge No. 34 donated three barber chairs.

 

Bacchus said he hopes to get more barbers to offer services, as well as a stylist for girls to get their makeup, nails and hair done for dances and special events.

 

“A haircut means so much to a kid in terms of confidence and your outlook on life,” he said. “You feel better about yourself, and it tends to make everything else easier.”

 

Turner’s also on board with helping students feel good and building up their self-esteem. “For some reason, people open up in a barbershop. It’s kind of reminiscent of a counselor. I listen and give feedback. Mostly, that’s what people need.”

 

Junior Sean Back snuck in for a quick trim.

‘Makes Me Feel Loved’

 

While Bacchus added the finishing touches to his hair, Lazevious reflected on how it felt to have someone care enough to give him a free haircut before graduation.

 

“It makes me feel loved and cared about,” he said. “I know Mr. Bacchus is a good barber. For him to take time out of his day to do this, it really means a lot to me.”

 

Part of his job is developing trust, Bacchus said.

 

“To sit down and have somebody take machines and run them through your hair, there has to be established trust,” Bacchus quipped. “That trust goes across the board. If you trust them to cut your hair, you trust them enough to talk to them as well.

 

“For me this project kind of embodies what KSSN is, making the school the center point of a kids’ life scholastically, bringing them community.”

 

Kent School Services Network is a countywide program that brings social and medical services to students’ schools and homes. It is run through a partnership with local districts and Kent ISD.

 

As they hung around the shop, students chatted.

 

“He’s a friend,” senior Gregory Sloan said of Bacchus. “He’s there if you need someone to talk to.”

 

“I don’t have to go to graduation with all this wild stuff on my head,” said senior Cameron Gray, touching his hair.

 

“(A barbershop) is a good environment. I think it makes everybody bond,” said senior Jamail Clark.

 

Next school year, students will be able to buy haircuts with Godwin Bucks, earned for good behavior through the school’s Positive Behavior Intervention Supports program.

 

Students with for their turns in the barber chair

School News Network: For immigrant families, ‘There’s a lot of fear’

3-bottom, City of Wyoming, , , ,
Alexandra Gillett, attorney with Justice for our Neighbors, and Ana Raquel Devereaux, an attorney with Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, explain people’s rights regardless of immigration status

By Erin Albanese

School News Network

 

 Kent School Services Network coordinator Erika VanDyke wasn’t sure what the turnout would be for a recent “Know Your Rights” event for immigrants at Wyoming’s West Elementary School. Staff had purposely not asked people to register, and they advertised it as a basic community-resource event because they knew families could easily be scared away.

 

“In the current political climate there’s a lot of fear,” VanDyke said, adding that she’s heard from parents and community members who aren’t sure right now what their protections include. “There’s a lot of fear from our families. As a KSSN school, we want to be a place where families can come with questions and get answers.”

 

About 15 people attended the districtwide event, aimed at providing members of the Hispanic community with knowledge about responding to immigration officials and preparing for encounters.

 

Immigration arrests are up 38 percent in the first three months of the Trump administration. Wyoming Public Schools’ Hispanic student population is about 40 percent.

 

The event was presented by VanDyke, English-language learner teacher Ruth Rolff, and representatives from Justice For Our Neighbors, a United Methodist immigration ministry in West Michigan; the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan; and the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center.

 

Cherry Health and Strong Beginnings also provided information about health care services.

 

Larry Figuero said he attended as a community member

Supporting the Community

Presenters defined immigrant rights at traffic stops, and what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials come to the house, workplace or stop someone in public. They stressed creating an emergency response plan, keeping all documents in an easily accessible place, speaking to an immigration lawyer to assess individual immigration status, and having a plan to protect one’s family.

 

They also explained how to grant power of attorney and how to tell whether a search warrant is real. They emphasized not signing anything without speaking with an attorney if arrested.

 

VanDyke said she’s had families call her to ask whether they should go to immigration check-ins.

 

“They have called and said ‘I don’t know if I should go or not,'” she said. “It’s not my job to tell them what to do, but it’s my job to say ‘Here are the resources, here are people you can talk to so you can make that decision.’

 

“We want to make sure families have information, because that’s part of being a community school,” she added. “For me it’s critical that particularly with this population, that they have access to this knowledge.”

 

Participants asked questions on topics ranging from driving legally in the U.S. to situations involving U.S.-born children in undocumented families.

 

Rolff said schools are supposed to be protected spaces where ICE can’t enter, like churches. Still, much is uncertain.

 

“Even though families trust us, there’s fear,” she said. “The schools are here to help them. Our No. 1 priority is the kids, which means the parents as well. … If parents have any questions, they can come to the school. If we don’t have the answers, we will do our best to find the answers for them.”

 

Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.

School News Network: Expo connects families to local resources

Citizen Journalism, , , ,
Esperanza Mercado and her children, Alex, a Godwin Heights High School senior and Yra, a first-grader, make their way around the fair. (Photo courtesy of School News Network.)

 

By Erin Albanese

School News Network

 

Esperanza Mercado and her children now know how to get the biggest bang for their food buck at farmers markets this summer. Along with learning that, they also heard about programs offered at a local ministry, and talked to health-care providers and business representatives in their own community.

 

Getting seeds and tiny planters from representatives of Grand Valley Health Plan are (on right, back to foreground) Jonathan Morales, a West Godwin Elementary fourth-grader, mom Ana Morales, and Ashley Morales, a West Godwin second-grader. (Photo courtesy of School News Network.)

North Godwin Elementary School hosted the third annual Health and Wellness Fair with 18 vendors, including faith-based organizations, financial institutions and others sharing information on services in and surrounding the district.

 

“It provides lots of different resources for families,” said Principal Mary Lang. The population at North Godwin is 88 percent economically disadvantaged, and 49 percent of students are Hispanic. Barriers to accessing resources often include language and transportation, Lang said.

 

Esperanza and her children, Alex, a Godwin Heights High School senior; Yra, a first-grader; and Doral, a kindergartner, said they were happy to receive goodies, information and ways to connect. They used a “Wellness Passport,” which was stamped by each vendor to enter into a drawing for prizes.

 

Kenzie Burt, school coordinator intern for Kent School Services Network, organized the fair. “It definitely provides families with knowledge,” she said.

 

Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.

 

Grant from Steelcase Foundation allows Kent District Library to bring back the Bookmobile

3-bottom, City of Kentwood, City of Wyoming, , , , ,

Kent District Library is pleased to announce that it has received a $208,000 grant from the Steelcase Foundation to design and offer a bookmobile to the KDL community.

 

This mobile library will enable KDL to bring its services and programming to Kent County residents who can’t travel to one of its 18 branches on a regular basis. When it hits the streets in winter 2018, it will be equipped with a vast assortment of collection materials for both children and adults.

 

The bookmobile, which will take 6-9 months to craft, will be outfitted with Wi-Fi, a video screen, a computer, printer, and modular shelves. The vehicle will also be handicapped accessible and will offer security features

 

“The Steelcase Foundation chose to support the new KDL bookmobile because of its alignment with the Foundation’s mission of empowering people to reach their full potential by encouraging early learning experiences, family literacy and improving access to books, programs and computer learning throughout Kent County,” said Steelcase Foundation President Julie Ridenour. “While not a new concept, the bookmobile will take these opportunities to the communities where they are most needed. The Steelcase Foundation hopes there will be a future time when today’s young and new readers will share their bookmobile experiences with their own families.”

 

The bookmobile will allow Kent District Library to share its programs and collection with patrons, particularly students, beyond the walls of the branch library. KDL will partner with Kent School Services Network, or KSSN, to bring the bookmobile to seven elementary schools each week. The bookmobile will also bring the library to senior centers, rural centers, summer day care programs and a variety of other locations.

 

“KDL is thrilled to offer library services and programs that can help improve our students’ reading ability through this partnership with KSSN,” said Linda Krombeen, development manager for Kent District Library. “We are extremely grateful to the Steelcase Foundation for its generosity in making this effort a reality.”

 

One of KDL’s goals in offering the bookmobile is to increase reading proficiency in third grade students. In 2016, 50 percent of Kent County third graders were not proficient in English language arts.

 

“The Kent School Services Network is very excited to partner with the KDL on the Bookmobile grant,” said Carol Paine-McGovern, executive director of KSSN. “Bringing access to library programs and collections to schools is a community school strategy that will have a positive impact on early literacy and parent engagement.”

 

Kent District Library will seek donations to fill the bookmobile with books and other materials.