May/June 2008

Letter from the Editor

As the school year is coming to a close, many of us – let’s face it, not just the students! – are looking forward to a bit of R&R. For my part, I’m looking forward to some lake time in the Finger Lakes of NY, berry picking, and pie baking. Fresh-fruit strawberry pie is the best! And black raspberry jam, too! Though I can’t fax you my pies, I hope this issue will give you a little food for thought – some ideas to percolate over the warm summer months.

In our feature article, Kristin Petri of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (see a description and link in the Resources section) tells the heart-wrenching tale of an excellent student brought to the United States at the age of two, and the devastation of discovering her undocumented status at age 16. Thousands of high school students are in similar circumstances. How can an undocumented student who knows no other country, yet faces no legal job prospects in the US, explain to a case manager why he believes a high school degree will not improve his or her employment options? What must it feel like to be an alien in one’s own country?

On a brighter note, our strategy of the month outlines a wonderful collaborative effort between Chicago Public Schools and the Illinois Department of Health and Human Services that places TANF recipients in schools as attendance monitors in order to fulfill their work requirement. Everyone wins! Laying the groundwork to replicate the project in your district would be a great summer project.

Jodi Heilbrunn, Editor

Invitation for Letters to the Editor

Do you have feedback regarding our feature article or strategy of the month? Would you like to submit a feature article on a topic of your choice? Send your commentary or ideas to info@schoolengagement.com for possible publication in our next issue. Please make the subject of your message “Newsletter commentary.” I would love to hear from you!

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DREAM Act Should be More than a Pipe Dream for Immigrant Students
By
Kristin Petri, Children’s Immigration Attorney
Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN)

Maria (a pseudonym) is a 17-year-old high school senior who recently sought legal advice from RMIAN regarding her lack of immigration status. Maria was brought into the United States when she was two years old by her grandmother, after her parents and brother were killed in a car accident. Maria’s grandmother had no way of supporting herself and her granddaughter in Mexico, and headed to the U.S. where she found work as a maid. Maria started school in the U.S. and quickly excelled in all academic subjects. By the time she started high school, she was a straight-A student taking accelerated and advanced placement courses, playing soccer, and participating in numerous volunteer programs. In her junior year she determined that she wanted eventually to go to medical school to study oncology. She began looking at undergraduate schools that offered solid “pre-med” programs, with the strong support of her teachers and academic advisors. On her 16th birthday, after asking her grandmother’s permission to obtain a driver’s permit, she received the shocking news that she was ineligible for a state I.D., driver’s permit, or license because she was undocumented. Maria knew all about the controversy over undocumented immigrants in the U.S., but never imagined that she was herself, undocumented. Her dreams for college, medical school, and a career as an oncologist began to unravel as she learned she was ineligible for federal financial aid, in-state tuition, most scholarships, a social security number, and work authorization.

Every year at least 65,000 undocumented students who were raised in the United States graduate from high school. Most were brought to the U.S. as young children through no choice of their own and now face unique barriers to higher education, are unable to work legally in the U.S., are not eligible for driver’s licenses, and often live in fear of deportation.

American immigration law currently has no mechanism to consider the special circumstances of such students, therefore irremediably punishing them for decisions made by adults many years ago. The roadblocks these students face in pursuing a productive, meaningful future can be a powerful disincentive to maintaining their educational, personal, and professional goals. Without paths to obtain lawful status and be welcomed into our civic society, it is no wonder that undocumented students may not see the value of a high school degree, let alone college. Education has little payoff for those who cannot reap its benefits in the legal workforce.

The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act is bipartisan legislation that addresses the situation faced by students like Maria. To qualify for status under the DREAM Act, a student must have been brought to the U.S. more than five years ago at 15 years of age or younger and must be able to demonstrate good moral character. Following high school graduation, the student could apply for six years of conditional status. During that period, the student would be required to complete two years of higher education in good academic standing, or serve two years in the U.S. military without dishonorable discharge. Upon completion of these requirements, lawful permanent residency would be granted. The DREAM Act would also eliminate a federal provision that discourages states from providing in-state tuition to undocumented residents, thus restoring full authority to the states to determine state college and university fees.

Support for the DREAM Act grew steadily after it was introduced in 2001. In the 2003-04 108th Congress, the DREAM Act passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 16-3 vote. More than 1/3 of all Representatives had signed on to the House version by the adjournment of the 108th Congress. It would very likely have passed in both chambers, but Congressional Republican leadership could not be persuaded to bring it up for a vote for fear that radical immigration restrictionists would rally against certain Congressional members in upcoming elections.

Most recently, the DREAM Act was re-introduced in both the House and Senate in March 2007, as congress, the president, and the American public engaged in a contentious and complex struggle to bring our immigration laws up to date. Sadly, although the DREAM Act won 52 votes in the Senate in November, 2007, this was eight votes shy of the 60 needed to move the legislation to the House of Representatives, and the bill died.

It is not clear when, if, or how the debate over meaningful reform of America’s immigration laws and methods of enforcing them will be resolved. Although there are ongoing efforts to convince Democratic leadership to ensure passage of the DREAM Act in 2008, it is unlikely that either party will seriously address any aspect of immigration reform during this election year.

Every year Congress fails to act, another class of high school students will graduate without being able to plan for the future, others will drop out and give up on their ambitions out of frustration, and some will be removed from their homes to countries they barely remember. Your help is needed in educating Congress and the public as to the importance of passing this bill!

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The Attendance Monitors Program:
A Wining Collaboration in Chicago

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) Attendance Improvement & Truancy Intervention Unit has been working diligently to expand existing, and foster new relationships with key agencies within the community. Our new motto is N.A.N.O., which stands for “Non Attendance is NOT an Option”. The Chicago Police Department, Chicago Department of Children and Family Services and The Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) have all been enlisted to support N.A.N.O. and the attendance initiative.

Collaboration between CPS and IDHS has yielded the Attendance Monitors Program in which TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) clients meet their community service requirements by working 20-30 hours per week as attendance monitors in the public schools. The collaboration is a win-win situation for IDHS, which has a new place for its TANF clients, for the clients themselves who learn new job skills, and for the schools that receive free help with attendance monitoring. This program is one of the new strategies that are part of the overall plan to raise the daily district-wide attendance rate above the 95% level.

In partnership with IDHS, we have developed a program in which the TANF clients receive two weeks of training which prepares them to provide support services to the attendance programs within the schools. Prior to being assigned to a school, the clients go through an intense training process. Each receives ten hours of training on CPS attendance policies and procedures provided by the school district and 40 hours of personal development around job skills and job preparation provided by IDHS. In addition, the TANF clients go through the required TB tests and background checks prior to an assignment as an Attendance Monitor. Each client is selected based on their expressed interest in working in the schools; none are “assigned” to the schools.

Upon completion of the training, a graduation ceremony is conducted, and certificates of completion are issued to the successful participants. Also at the ceremonies, school principals who have been assigned attendance monitors, as well as former attendance trainees, come to address the new monitors, to encourage and inspire them regarding their new assignments in the schools. During their talks, the principals and former trainees share their experiences regarding the Attendance Monitors Program, and speak candidly about the value these monitors bring to their schools.

Since the spring of 2007, six groups of TANF clients have gone through the process. Nearly 100 women have been trained and placed in over 20 schools to provide attendance and truancy support, and the results have been very promising. The Monitors are assigned at the schools for an indefinite length of time, depending on whether they get job offers from outside the schools, or from the schools themselves. They work on all attendance related tasks, including maintaining individual student folders/records, making phone calls to parents, meeting with parents and students and school attendance teams, making home visits (accompanied) and being the link from the attendance office to classroom teachers.

It is exciting to see the enthusiasm that this program brings to the participating schools, and to see the growth that participating brings to the young women who serve as monitors. We look forward to being able to assign more monitors to serve more schools in the coming months.

James Deanes

Chicago Public Schools Office of

Elementary Areas & Schools

Director of the Attendance/Truancy Improvement Initiative

Email: jdeanes@cps.k12.il.us

Sign up for education-related e-mail alerts from Grantsalert.com. The website also includes grant-seeking tips, a special page for sources of classroom funding for teachers (called GSFT), and a directory of grant writers to help you. Registering for funding alerts is free, but the grant writers, of course, are not.

Teachers, go to Doners Choose to make requests for classroom supplies.

Find and apply online for competitive grant opportunities from all Federal grant-making agencies.

RGK Foundation - The Foundation's programmatic areas of interest include Health, Education, Human Services, and Community Affairs. The Foundation's primary interests within education include formal K-12 education, literacy, and higher education.

The Dollar General offers annual or bi-annual grants in five literacy areas:
· Adult Literacy Grants
· Back-To-School Grants
· Beyond Words: The Dollar General School Library Relief Program
· Family Literacy Grants
· Youth Literacy Initiatives (February 5 application submission deadline)

Here’s a wonderful webpage that lists endless grant opportunities for K-12 schools, and has a page on grant writing tips! They also offer a subscription to Schoolgrants Biweekly Newsletter for $45 a year.

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The Journal of Social Issues is an online quarterly publication of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. The March 2008 issue is dedicated to research on predicted trajectories through high school graduation and dropout, and on kids who defy those trajectories. Some of the titles of interest include:

16th Annual Model Schools Conference

Orlando, Florida

June 22 – 25, 2008

Showcases, among other topics, student engagement strategies used by high performing schools

OJJDP National Youth Gang Symposium
June 23-26
Atlanta, Georgia
This event will offer innovative and successful gang-related programs and strategies, as well as provide the latest information on youth gang activities and trends from top national experts.

American School Counselor Association Annual Conference

“Setting New Standards"

www.schoolengagement.org

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