The executive director of Communities in Schools Spokane County says the nonprofit is looking to train more mentors for at-risk students to keep them on track to attain their high school diplomas.

“We have 323 mentors in 32 schools in Spokane County right now, and there’s a waiting list of students who want a mentor,” says Chuck Teegarden, the nonprofit’s executive director. His goal is to bring on 100 more mentors during the next year.

The organization here is part of the national Communities in Schools network, a federation of independent organizations in 27 states and the District of Columbia that work to reduce high school dropouts. The local entities organize and mobilize existing community resources to work toward that outcome and seek to foster cooperative partnerships for the benefit of students and their families.

On the local level, Communities in Schools says it strives to serve as a bridge between schools and businesses, faith groups, and other nonprofit entities, identifying resources that are available to provide a range of services, such as mentoring tutoring, health care, summer and after school programs, family counseling, and service learning. 

Teegarden succeeded Sherry Barrett as executive director of Communities in Schools Spokane last March. He has more than 30 years of leadership experience in health and human services, including 11 years as executive director of the Communities in Schools program in Pinal County, Arizona. 

In its 2014-15 annual report, covering a fiscal year that runs from July 1 to June 30, the eight-year-old nonprofit reported that 46 percent of its $647,000 income for that 12-month period came from grants and foundations. Area school districts contributed 25 percent, with 13 percent coming from special fundraising events. The remaining income came from local businesses, individuals, and grants and foundations, the report says.

CIS has 15 full-time employees, and 12 part-time employees, Teegarden says. The nonprofit leases space in the Empire State Building at 905 W. Riverside.

It mentored more than 300 at-risk students last year using community volunteers. More than 400 students received on-going, intensive case management services, Teegarden says. Citing data from the Washington state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Teegarden says one in five high school students in Spokane County fails to graduate in the traditional four-year time frame. That’s an improvement from 2007 when one out of three failed to graduate in four years, he says.

“We push for every child in Spokane County to graduate from high school and be prepared for future education, work, and life,” he says.

The National Dropout Prevention Center/Network in Clemson, S.C., says high school graduates on average earn $9,000 more per year than high school dropouts.

The annual report says last year more than 6,300 students across Spokane County received assistance ranging from basic hygiene support to college scholarship help from CIS and its donor partners. Last year’s number compares to just more than 3,000 students served in 2013-14, 2,000 in 2012-13, 3,400 in 2011-12, and 4,100 in 2010-11, Teegarden says.

“Those numbers fluctuate because it’s not a stable universe when you’re a small nonprofit like us,” he says.

Last year’s annual report says that of the more than 400 at-risk students receiving specialized help, 80 percent met one or more academic goals, 80 percent met an attendance or school coursework goal, and 75 percent met a behavioral goal.

The report says 25 public schools in Spokane County received some form of assistance from the nonprofit. About 260 hygiene kits were distributed to students, and Issaquah-based Costco Wholesale Corp. donated 500 school backpacks.

The organization’s eight on-site coordinators provide daily support to students and are located at Cheney, North Central, and Rogers high schools. Two middle schools in Spokane—Garry and Shaw—and two in Cheney—Cheney and Westwood—also have on-site coordinators, as does Sheridan Elementary School, in East Spokane, Teegarden says.

In collaboration with teachers on staff, on-site coordinators identify children most at risk of academic failure and partner them with school staff. They then set academic goals with students to work on and develop a plan to prevent them from failing by identifying the child’s needs, Teegarden says.

“Officially, 103 students enrolled at Rogers High School are homeless, meaning they truly have no place to go; they’re on the street,” he says.

He adds, “A lot of them have been in and out of foster homes for most of their lives. Some have gotten to the point where they feel it’s just easier to fend for themselves in whatever way they possibly can.”

On the nonprofit’s Facebook page, Rogers High School Principal Lori Wyborney appears in a video addressing the importance of the on-site coordinator and school mentors.

“My teachers, myself, we’re trained to be teachers. We really don’t know about social services all that well,” Wyborney says in the video. “Communities in Schools is that access point for those kids who need more wrap-around services.”

She says, “I have a high number of students whose parents have died, are incarcerated, drug addicted maybe, so they have no connection to their family and so they are really on their own.”

Later in the video, Rogers’ site coordinator Jason Anderson says, “If they’re hungry, we’re going to feed them so they can focus. If they’re cold, we’re going to cloth them so they can focus. They need someone to look them in the eye and say, ‘Hey, I’m proud of you. You did well,’ because they may not have that happening at home.”

Teegarden says providing adequate nourishment for students is a challenge. 

“We’re having a heck of a time finding food. We don’t have much food in our pantries, I mean canned goods and nonperishables,” Teegarden says.

“Second Harvest has been doing well collecting produce and such, but that is difficult for children to transport and prepare as opposed to canned goods.” Last year, more than 900 students in Spokane County received food though school food pantries, he says.

The eight individual site coordinators also have been trained to enroll students into Medicaid to get them free or low-cost health services. Close to 150 students received dental assistance with the nonprofit’s help last year, he says.

It isn’t just an academic issue for most students at risk, Teegarden contends.

“Broken homes, homelessness, hunger… these kids have experienced a lot of emotional trauma,” he says. “We have more children needing therapy than there are therapists.”