BALDWIN COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT COMBATS LACKLUSTER ATTENDANCE WITH RESPECT, DIGNITY AND PERSONAL ATTENTION
District graduation rates continue to rise, truancy numbers are falling
Will Slaten, David Paulsson, JD Davern, Cullen Ormond, Jacob Garrett
— DAY BY DAY
The difference between a student staying in school or dropping out could be as simple as a washing machine.
Or a hamburger.
Or a personal road map to success.
In response to continuous years of high truancy rates, low-test scores and a systematically oppressed community, employees within the Baldwin County School District are making concerted efforts to treat each of its students with respect, dignity and personal attention.
“We have a lot of teachers who work very hard and are dedicated to making a difference in the lives of our students,” said Dr. Noris Price, in a video on the Baldwin County School District Facebook page. “One of the things they focus on is differentiating the instruction to meet the needs of the students.”
Their efforts are making a difference.
The district, which has an enrollment of about 5,600 students and is under the leadership of Superintendent Dr. Noris Price partnered with Communities in Schools, a non-profit, national organization designed to increase graduation rates, combat against drop-out rates and to help students find success in and out of school.
But, under the direction of Price, who joined the BCSD in 2014, every student is now qualified for aids such as free/reduced lunches. And as of the current school year, the district has made available clothes closets and washing machines in some of the school buildings to ensure that students have access to basic needs — an issue school officials said hindered success for many students in the district.
“Most students drop out of school because of their inability to stay on track with their fellow students,” said Sandy Baxter, the local director of Communities in Schools.
District officials said there are many reasons Baldwin County students can fall behind, including having inadequate reading skills and a lack of clean uniforms.
Over the past few years, Price and her staff have examined truancy patterns in the district and have constructed new ways to connect with students on a more personal level to help meet their specific needs so they can attend school and learn.
“We strive to do what’s best for our kids. We meet them where they are, we challenge them, we push them forward, we try everything we could possibly try to get them where they need to be,” said Tracy Clark, Principal of Creekside Elementary School in a video on the Baldwin County School District Facebook page. “With our kids that are already successful, we challenge them, we push them to their higher limits.”
To help meet the needs of students and to ensure they have the opportunities to attend school, Price said school officials are involved in many students’ lives from the time they wake up in the morning to when they leave an after-school program in the afternoon.
— 6:30 AM — GETTING READY
It takes a keen eye to notice a student coming to school with the same pants, the same shirt, day after day. But counselors like Mel Jackson of Oak Hill Middle School and site coordinators from Communities in Schools noticed that many students were missing school due to a lack of clean clothes, which often carries a stigma. To help students and their families meet some basic needs, district officials installed washing machines and dryers, along with clothes closets, directly in the schools.
Clothes closet in Oak Hill Middle
“We keep an eye on the children and see which ones are coming to school in the same clothes day after day,” said Kemyada Pinkston, a Communities in Schools site coordinator at Oak Hill Middle. “Maybe it’s the same shirt or the same pair of slacks. That’s when we will pull them into the clothes closet and get them what they need.”
The clothes closets are a relatively simple idea that aims to eliminate a major problem in the community. The closets are filled with donated clothing such as sneakers, slacks and collared shirts — donated by the local community and faculty. Mrs. Pinkston said having these closets present in the schools allow for easier access for the students that need them.
But the personal attention paid to the districts potentially at-risk students extends further than the material needs, but their nutritional needs as well.
— 12:04 PM — LUNCHTIME
For years, Baldwin County students were required to carry a specific “reduced cost” lunch ticket or card — a symbol that displayed inequality among students. And school officials noticed. According to the Food and Nutrition Service, Provision 2 status allows schools to serve all meals at no charge for a four year period.
Beginning in 2016, the Baldwin County School District was granted Provision 2 status by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which means the county met certain standards to be qualified for meal assistance from the federal government.
This problem of shaming students who are unable to pay full price meals extends beyond the borders of Baldwin County. Earlier in 2017, New Mexico lawmakers outlawed ‘lunch shaming’ students as a result of not being to pay their meal balances. Lunch shaming is requiring a student who has debt with the school to work off the balance or carry a separate piece of identification like a slip or wristband.
The shift to the district having the federal government pay for lunch has eliminated the potential stress a student would feel when having to carry a tangible reminder that there is something separating them from other students. Reducing or eliminating these stressors such as not having clean clothes or not being able to afford lunch are small steps toward progress.
Addressing the basic needs of clothing and food is just one facet to helping students be successful in the classroom. School officials have also recognized that students often face challenges after school and during the summer.
— CLASSES IN SESSION
Once students are attending school consistently, officials said the next step to ensuring their success is to customize their high school education plans. The primary goal of Baldwin High School, with an enrollment of about 1260 students a year, is to prepare them for post graduation endeavours, such as college and beyond. The school aims to succeed through the Baldwin College and Career Academy (BCCA), headed by Teresa Phillips.
“[The BCCA] prepares students to be college and career ready, in the twenty-first century, and in the workforce in general,” Phillips said. “The program keeps the students focused, and more.”
The academy has been active in the district’s high school since 2011, but Phillips said the Career and Technical programs have been available to students since the school opened in 1957.
The academy offers 11 career clusters for students to pick from, and 14 preset pathways in career, technical, agricultural education or fine arts, for them to test into and work through while they are in high school.
Students test into specific career clusters through pathway assessments in eighth grade and then they are assigned plans of study that guide them from ninth to twelfth grade. Phillips added that the pathways reduce stress on students as they progress.
— 4 PM — AFTER SCHOOL
Another program school officials said is helping Baldwin County High School students succeed is the High Achievers Program, an after-school program that uses science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics to enrich students learning.
The High Achievers Program, which was founded in 2002, is funded through the Georgia Department of Human Services and is in partnership with Georgia College & State University. The funding covers the cost of the tools, such as school supplies which are needed to provide ninth through 12th graders with an opportunity to learn after school four to five days a week.
“It makes us want to strive to be our best,” said a sophomore at Baldwin County High School and who is also enrolled in the High Achievers Program. Currently, there are 160 students enrolled in the program.
On a recent March day, the students in the program, which begins at 3:30 p.m. and ends at 6:00 p.m., learned how to make their own lip balm.
“We are giving them things to pique their interest,” said Sequena Moon, manager of the High Achievers Program. “We want to show them how to use skills learned in science and turn them into a career.”
The after-school program also provides apprenticeship opportunities, which allows students to shadow someone with a particular skill and then share their experience with the class.
“I really like the program,” said the same sophomore student as she gawked at her fellow classmates as they munched on crickets and crackers, an activity that enlightened students on how different cultures have alternatives to obtaining protein. “It teaches us real life skills.”
Providing unique opportunities like creating personal lip balms or learning about alternative forms of protein for students to use their skills is just one way Moon said she and the rest of the school district intends to combat drop-out rates in Baldwin County.
“Some of these students come from a social environment where there is no culture that cultivates an interest in learning,” Moon said.
However, Moon said she emphasizes to her students on a daily basis that school is not a chore and is not something to be frustrated about.
“A lot of our students come in angry, angry at everything,” Moon said. “I have them stand up individually before we start the evening and talk for two minutes about their entire day. It teaches them patience.”
The students who are involved in the High Achievers Program have an opportunity to immerse themselves in a variety of opportunities to advance their skills throughout the academic school year as well as expand their leadership skills at the program’s annual summer camp.
“These kids are helping others more than they know,” Moon said. “They are encouraging and mentoring younger kids to be inspired to be camp counselors and a part of the program, just like them.”
Moon said she hopes to continue to receive funding so the program can be extended to help students as early as the sixth grade level in order to continue decreasing the district’s drop-out rates.
— SCHOOL’S OUT FOR SUMMER
The partnership between Communities in Schools and the Baldwin County School District has begun to reach students beyond the traditional school day. The reach has been extended to help during the summer months.
Baldwin County school officials have recognized that there is still a need for a summer lunch program, which was launched in 2008–2009.
The summer lunch program is called the Seamless Summer Option program, and it is operated through the National School Breakfast and Lunch Programs.
The federally-funded program, available to communities where the majority of students are eligible for free/reduced lunch, allows students 18 years old or younger who attend a Baldwin County public school to have a free breakfast and lunch every weekday from about June 1 to July 21. The meals, according to USDA regulations, follow the same nutritional guidelines used in the cafeterias during the school year and must be eaten on site.
When the Baldwin County summer lunch program began, food was available at one site, Oak Hill Middle School. About 300 students received breakfast and lunch per day.
“We started the program at Oak Hill just to see what kind of response we got from the public,” said Kathy Morgan, free/reduced clerk for the Department of Nutrition for Baldwin County Schools. “We had enough success to move it to the high school, where they had a bigger kitchen, and then expanded it even further to go out into the community.”
Morgan said the meals provided during the summer are not just peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but rather they include hot meals like hamburgers, fajitas and grilled chicken that give the students the nutrition they need.
Because of the program’s success at Oak Hill and Baldwin County High School, the district has expanded the program to provide eating sites around the Milledgeville community, which officials said allows for more students to receive breakfast and lunch if they need it.
The sites, ranging from the Milledgeville Police Department to summer programs at Baldwin High School and Oak Hill, are first approved by the Georgia Department of Education before a designation is declared and students can be served. Providing free meals during summer programs allows the organizations to spend their money on helping the kids learn and have fun without having to worry about paying for their food.
The district is reimbursed for each meal by the USDA. Breakfast is $2.04 and lunch is $3.24, and those rates stay the same whether they serve 100 kids or 100,000 kids. Last summer, about 40,000 meals were provided to students through the district’s summer lunch program.
But school officials have recognized that stationary sites are not enough to accommodate many students in the district.
In 2013, the district’s nutrition department began using a bus to help serve students during the summer months. The bus delivered meals to students in specific locations such as neighborhoods and apartment complexes, said Morgan.
Morgan said the designated bus stops are situated into throughout the community, and have been specifically chosen because they are safe yet are accessible to a high number of students.
To help promote the summer lunch program, each student is sent home with a flyer before the end of the school year. Additionally, the department posted signs at each site a week and a half before the annual programs begins.
Last year, school officials recognized that one bus was not enough to serve the entire district.
Therefore, officials added a second bus to help distribute food to students.
Morgan said the buses made 21 combined stops daily, which allowed for more than 850 students to be served on a daily basis.
“I remember one day where we served over 3,000 kids in one day,” Morgan said.
To accommodate the increasing need for food in the summer, the program employed about 20 people who worked Monday through Friday preparing the food in the kitchen and driving buses to food sites.
In addition to paid employees, volunteers from the community also helped serve students at the sites and the bus stops.
Morgan said the free meals have become a special occasion for the kids.
“Parents and their kids have organized little picnics at the bus stops,” Morgan said. “When the bus drives up, the kids run up to the bus and are so excited. These meals really do mean a lot to these kids and the community.”
— WHAT’S NEXT FOR BALDWIN COUNTY?
The Baldwin County School District has experienced positive, tangible results with its graduation and truancy rates in result of the various programs. Graduation rates have increased by 20 percent, soaring from 66 to 86 percent. The number of dropouts has decreased as well. However, improvements still need to be made. It is imperative to encourage students to have at least some kind of secondary education and graduate high school with HOPE eligibility.
“We’re preparing the future workforce,” Price said. “We want these kids to come back to this community and make a difference.”
Dr. Price and Baldwin County Schools have a difficult path ahead, but they are meeting their students’ needs, one shirt or one meal at a time.
“We have a good school system, but we want to be a great school system,” Price said. “We want to make sure that all of our students graduate with the knowledge and skills necessary so they can be college and career ready.”
