Following an extensive evaluation, Communities In Schools of Mid-America (CIS of Mid-America) began operating under the new name SparkWheel in July, as it separated from the national non-profit Communities in Schools.
In a news release, Victoria Partridge, vice president of communications for SparkWheel, said, “Our new name reflects the spark that we see in every person we help, while the wheel symbolizes the circle of support we provide.”
Those integrated support services continue right here in Parsons with Dara Barr-Miller, the student support coordinator for Parsons High School and Susan Hill, the student support coordinator for Parsons Middle School.
The coordinators love their jobs working with families and students to help keep students in school and help them succeed in school and in life.
Both schools provide a variety of every day supports to help ensure students’ basic needs are being met, from clothes closets at both schools, to food, to hygiene products.
The program’s efforts to reach students where they are goes far beyond that. Sparkwheel supports parents in helping to handle social or emotional concerns they have about their child. They try to assist in improving parent-child communications. SparkWheel coordinators try to help with family difficulties or concerns that affect students at school and will discuss with parents their concerns about their child’s academic achievement. Coordinators refer families to community resources as needed and offer holiday assistance. Coordinators also do what they can to help students be to school on time.
For students, they do whole school enrichment activities, but also special enrichment activities for those at-risks students on their caseload. Every day, Hill said, students are in her room. She provides small group lessons on social skills, and how to take care of strong feelings. She assists students with learning good study skills and provides students with one-to-one support.
“Teachers don’t always have time to just listen to the kids. We have the opportunity. We can listen,” Barr-Miller said. “When we bring someone in and we see just how many kids just need a connection, it shows how important we are in the school to be that connection.”
“We have to fight to keep the kids out of our room,” Hill said. “It’s like the biggest problem because we want them to be in class. At the same time, that connection… These kid’s cling to you.
“We may have a kid who goes the whole week, losing their mind and getting in trouble in every class …. And it’s because they’ve got something going on. I don’t know how teachers do what they do as is with all the standards they have to meet and having to try to adjust lessons to meet everyone’s specific needs. The fact that we are here, we fill in the gaps,” Hill added. “That kid needs to talk, so that kid comes and hangs out in this room. He may miss two hours of class, but he wasn’t going to be listening anyway, and be engaged. They might cry about it, cuss about it, or just shut down for a minute. No teacher has time to stop for two hours, or 20 minutes, to deal with that one kid, in a class full, on what they need, where we can. Send them down. It lets teachers teach.”
Thanks to SparkWheel, special guest speakers are also brought in, like Terrence Talley speaking on “Don’t Give Up”, talking to students about how we all need someone to have our back.
Hill said such speakers had an impact on students who needed to hear the messages they brought, as some came to her afterwards and talked, and shared their thoughts.
Barr-Miller said they will also continue providing special programming to help students, like bringing in Future Now: Finance, the financial literacy program that gives students a hands-on perspective to the realities of managing one’s personal finances as an adult. Hill said she is trying to figure out how to take her seventh-grade students to the high school to participate, too.
Barr-Miller said she also plans this year to expand on providing the formals for prom. Besides getting dresses in, she said she wants to do more suits for the boys.
“That is something I didn’t expect, was so many of those requests,” Barr-Miller said. “It was kind of hard for me to get that together, so I want to have more of those. I had a lot of people tell me they had them, but actually getting them was hard. The boys, I wanted to help them more.”
Barr-Miller is hoping to get a sponsor to help with tickets to prom, too, given they cost $20. Last year they had one donor provide 50 tickets so students who would not otherwise be able to go were able attend.
Whatever capacities they can serve the students in to help them succeed in school, Hill and Barr-Miller said they will wear those hats to the best of their abilities according to their roles within the school and organization. “It doesn’t get boring. Ever,” Hill said. “I love it. I don’t ever want any other job. I hope this is what I stop working from, to be honest.”
NOTE: Anyone interested in assisting the programs through donations can contact Barr-Miller or Hill. Hygiene items are always in great need, especially feminine products. Donations can be taken to Parsons High School or Parsons Middle School.
