Communities in Schools is the nation’s premier model for how to bring schools into partnerships with families, social services and business to salvage the future of at-risk children. It acts as a catalyst for locally designed, holistic programs which keep kids off the dropout rolls so they’ll graduate from high school poised to succeed in college, the workforce and community service.

The process which yields that product unifies a community’s public and private sectors to find their own ways of developing the whole child. In practice, it seeks a synergy of resources which strengthen character and family and provide life and skills training in safe learning environments.

Now, CIS of Georgia is beginning the next logical extension of that mission—a network of alternative high schools, or Performance Learning Centers, where kids at the greatest risk of dropping out receive close personal attention, write their own life plans and work through computer assisted courses at their own speed. Eight PLCs have already opened, and 17 more will debut by the end of 2005. In all of them, the emphasis will be on students setting—and living up to—high expectations, where they learn to love learning for its own sake, not just make the grade.

CIS kicks off the process in a community by drawing together a local task force comprised of resource groups that include educators and schools administrators; private-sector business, labor, media and funding organizations; professional social-service and justice-system workers; clergy and faith groups; parents; students; and community and government leaders.

Task force members start by assessing the magnitude of the dropout problem and then take ownership of it. That’s essential. They identify the resources available to solve the problem, determine what needs to be done, and develop their own plan to solve it. They can draw upon CIS and other models that have worked, if they choose. Once the plan is approved by the local board of education, the task force puts the local CIS organization in place, constitutes a board of directors, hires the director and staff who will implement the plan—and then goes out of business.

CIS is serving almost 2 million students in 30 states and 2,600 schools. In Georgia, for instance, the results speak volumes: graduation rates were up by 6.6 percent in established CIS communities since 1997; in 2002, tutoring efforts more than tripled the percentage of elementary school students reading at or above grade level; in the same year, 64.9 percent of students who had been habitually absent improved their attendance after entering CIS; two-thirds of new CIS students created fewer disciplinary problems—more than 40 percent of them had no suspensions from school—and more than three-quarters of high school students and over two-thirds of grade schoolers who had failing grades before coming to CIS boosted their academic averages.

With their high-tech, high-touch philosophy, small (150) student enrollments in off-campus settings and high expectations, the PLCs challenge kids to make, and meet, impressive social and academic goals. That’s already happening in the two pioneer schools, in Atlanta and Valdosta, where students have completed courses and earned high school diplomas in the first semester alone. Because PLC staff come from diverse educational settings, they draw upon a great breadth of ideas in developing unique solutions with, and for, each student. Nowhere else are people freed from the constraints of arbitrary schedules and behemoth-sized high schools where too few teachers attend to too many students.

The compact staffing model makes for intensive one-on-one contact with the kids—it includes an academic coordinator, five teachers who act as guidance-oriented learning facilitators, and a services coordinator who deals with non-academic issues and functions as PLC liaison to parents and the community. Instead of being all square-pegged into the same round hole, students use PLC resources for advanced, catch-up and after-hours study and research, when and if they want and need to do so. This isn’t a carte-blanche invitation to do your own thing, though; it’s done within the framework of a structured, innovative and customized program that requires the student to achieve specific and rigorous academic and personal goals. While the programming is flexible, it’s also exacting. While the environment is caring and comfortable, it’s also business-like.

Service learning teaches the kids how to be public-spirited citizens. Internship opportunities let them test vocational paths. The marketable skills students develop make them certifiably employable after graduation.

Like all CIS initiatives, this one will be carefully evaluated. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s $6.3-million donation toward the $10-million project, however, is a strong endorsement of the PLC concept. The Foundation invested it because it envisions PLCs as a proven template for local solutions to the school dropout dilemma.