A spotlight on community schools, as migrant students join their cohorts

As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the city’s network of community schools, where under-resourced families can reach holistic, wraparound services within schools. 

Nearly a decade ago, 45 schools became Community Schools through a citywide initiative to improve attendance and reduce drop-outs. In the 2022-23 school year, the city counted 421 community schools across districts, equipping under-resourced schools with social services, and robust educational and social learning support. 

Within community schools, City Year New York deploys AmeriCorps members to assist and mentor students across its 17 locations. Assigned to a cohort, AmeriCorps mentors act as teaching aides, staff liaison, and even peers – as they help welcome migrant students and families into the city’s school complex. Through funding from the New York State Commission on National and Community Service , AmeriCorps members – known as Student Success Coaches – bolster student attendance and tutor English Language Arts and core math skills to ensure timely graduation and future career opportunities. 

A graduate of AmeriCorps, Annie Kessler now serves as City Year New York’s executive director. Drawing from her personal experience at City Year, Kessler aims to increase opportunities for AmeriCorps graduates, while continuing to uphold attendance goals, especially for migrant students. 

New York Nonprofit Media spoke to Kessler about the unique aspects of the Community School initiative and upcoming programming priorities.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

What do you find most fulfilling about your work at City Year New York, given your extensive tenure at the organization? 

When we talk about City Year New York, we talk about having a double bottom line. So our AmeriCorps members are working in schools with elementary and middle school students, where they're supporting them academically, socially and emotionally. They're supporting teachers, running events and, over the course of the year, AmeriCorps members also get mentorship and professional development. It's also helping (Student Success Coaches) figure out their career journey. So I think the motivational and inspirational part that has kept me here is just seeing that connection between the students and the AmeriCorps members, and knowing that there's such a deep impact happening on these two generations, which I find really special. 

What kind of communities are served by City Year New York? 

So the schools that we're working with are historically under-resourced communities, and we're really proud to partner with the Department of Education for the community school initiative. The community schools really allow City Year and all of our partners to think holistically about the individual needs of that school. Each school, each neighborhood, has specific assets and specific needs. 

The Community School initiative allows organizations like us to come in and work with the principals (to identify needs) in addition to working with AmeriCorps members – our Student Success Coaches, who are doing attendance, coaching, social, emotional and academic support. We also look at bringing in mental health counselors, different types of afterschool programming and engagement opportunities for parents and families, if needed. 

What exactly is a Community School? What sets this initiative apart from other schools serving under-resourced areas? 

So the concept of a community school has been around for decades. And the idea is that schools have the opportunity to be the hub of the community and do more than (just) strictly educate a young person. Oftentimes, schools wind up needing teachers, principals or school staff to support students that are outside the realm of traditional education. Whether that's mental health, food needs or housing support – whatever those, we figure out a way to really systematize it. 

In New York, there’s funding that comes from both the city and the state to help support community schools and support organizations that work in community schools to make sure that we can bring in additional resources. The idea is to look at the assets and the needs of a specific community and school and then figure out how to expand services to meet those needs.

So I've heard of this notion that community schools are more entrenched with social workers, with them having more influence on the lives of students? Is this true? 

That definitely depends. Coming out of the pandemic, one of the goals of the community school initiative was to ensure that there are mental health resources for students. So that can look like having additional social workers or guidance counselors. It can also look like having, in our case, more Student Success Coaches, who do general social-emotional learning, such as having tiered layers of support. So Corps members might do whole class or small group work on general social-emotional learning, (while) knowing that there are additional supports if a student or a family need it. So bringing in social workers, guidance counselors, when that's needed. Again, it just looks a little bit different at each school.

In terms of an integrative education model, I'd like to learn more about the “Whole School Whole Child” model? 

So we talk about our “Whole School Whole Child” model as focusing on the ABCs, so attendance; behavior, or social-emotional learning; and then coursework, the academic side with a focus on core subjects of (English Language Arts) and math. Because we know that if students can be at grade level and excel in those core subjects, it opens up the opportunities for them to excel in other subjects. So we talked about putting AmeriCorps members to support the “Whole School” by supporting attendance initiatives, or celebrating students’ coursework. 

Then focusing on the “Whole Child” (involves) targeting interventions to the needs of a specific student. The other thing that's really unique and powerful about the City Year New York model is that we're not (only) putting an individual AmeriCorps member into a school, we have a team approach. So while each AmeriCorps member works with a set of students and teachers, the fact that they're functioning as a team also allows them to support more students. 

How does City Year serve the incoming migrant student population? And if so, how are you meeting their needs? 

In several of our schools, we have seen a lot of new families joining the community over the past year or two. Our team of AmeriCorps members have been really supportive of students and families. I was at a school in East Harlem a couple of weeks ago, meeting with the principal, and she talked about the social-emotional culture and climate building that the team does. So they're greeting students, cheering them on every morning – for students who might be new to the country, new to the community and school, seeing those caring, friendly faces welcome them and ensuring that they belong can make a massive difference.

Do you have any strategic priorities to serve this population as executive director?

For one, we're continuing to really focus on all of our attendance work. So we know, first and foremost, students need to be able to show up to school, and that this population of students and families are facing a lot of barriers that can get in the way…whether it's housing barriers or needing to go to various appointments to get students and families settled. So our AmeriCorps members work with parent coordinators to make calls, attend parent teacher conferences and ask if there are barriers to students showing up. While our AmeriCorps members might not be able to remove all of those barriers, by working with the whole school, staff and community school director, we might be able to provide the right resources that families need in order to make sure that students have the ability to attend. 

Another big barrier that we're able to help families with is by providing a lot of afterschool programming. So for parents who are needing to navigate lots of different changes in their lives, picking a student up at 2:30 in the afternoon isn't always feasible. So the fact that our AmeriCorps members are able to provide after-school homework help or (help students) participate in sports, arts and other enrichment activities is something that gives them opportunities to build relationships (and help parents). 

What are some specific leadership goals that you wish to advance as Executive director of City Year New York? 

One is career development and talent pathways opportunities for our AmeriCorps members. While City Year does a lot to support AmeriCorps members, we know that there's more that we can do. And in this moment where the job market is still a bit in flux, young people are uncertain about what careers they should go into. The cost of higher education is really intimidating, so we want to continue building partnerships in the public and private sector, with nonprofits, to make sure that our AmeriCorps members have clear pathways when they finish their year of service. We have some great partners already that are supporting this work and helping our members get their resumes ready. But we think we can take this work further, by having companies (look into directly hiring AmeriCorps members). 

The other side is continuing to grow the number of AmeriCorps members that are serving with us. Like other nonprofits, we've seen fluctuations in enrollment over the past several years, and we know that there are more young people who would want to serve with City Year New York if they got a chance to learn more about the opportunity. So we're continuing to deepen our partnerships with CUNY and SUNY, with a lot of the programs coming out of the Department for Youth and Community Development, to let young people understand the impact they can have with us.