Staying the Course with Communities in Schools

Meet the organization guiding NoMi students to graduation

It’s not often you get to spend a lunch break belting out the lyrics to your favorite song while friends cheer you on, though the world would certainly be a brighter place if that were true. Then again, for students at Kalkaska Middle School (KMS), it actually is, thanks to Shyenne Stapleton, who started hosting monthly karaoke breaks at the start of the 2025 school year.

“It may seem silly to some,” says Stapleton, but as the KMS site coordinator for Communities in Schools Northwest Michigan, she sees it as a simple way to help the middle schoolers let loose while building confidence—both in themselves and in the support around them—and to remind the students that they’re capable of doing hard things “in and out of the classroom.”

Which pretty nicely sums up the overarching mission of Communities in Schools, or CIS, a national organization founded in the late 1970s to champion kids through (and to) graduation, an accomplishment that research hails as a strong predictor of adult success.

Today, CIS works in more than 3,500 schools nationwide, 13 of which are right here in northern Michigan, led by Northwest Michigan chapter Executive Director Amy Burk.

How It Started

CIS landed Up North about 25 years ago after a push to bring human services closer to families kicked off between Mancelona Schools and the Mancelona Family Resource Center. CIS fit right into that effort and eventually added mentoring and afterschool programs too.

By 2017, Mancelona Public Schools’ graduation rate ballooned from 64.4 percent in 2002 to 86.8 percent, leading CIS to expand into even more districts. As time went on and the organization proved itself successful, national grants, an Impact 100 award, and collaboration with the Michigan Department of Education helped CIS reach more students every year.

“Honestly, during our second expansion, schools started calling us,” says Burk. “They saw the need and wanted CIS in their buildings.”

The programming works like this, explains Burk: a CIS site coordinator is placed in each participating school to work alongside school staff in identifying what’s getting in the way of student success and how to address it before their academics start to seriously suffer and derail their path to graduation. Most students who participate in CIS are referred by teachers or community partners, though students are now reaching out for support independently too.

How It’s Going

Last year, 100 percent of CIS participating students met college and career readiness benchmarks, 96 percent achieved both attendance and behavior goals, 93 percent met social-emotional goals, and 90 percent met their academic goals.

Getting students to hit certain benchmarks isn’t the only win though. “It’s a whole child approach,” Burk says.

Every activity or outreach initiative starts with cultivating strong relationships between students and their peers, coordinators, and school staff. Once those connections are made, it’s easier for the kids to express their challenges and for the adults to know how to come alongside them.

As for what challenges students are up against in the years leading up to graduation, many are tangible and urgent, and notes Burk, amplified by the realities of living rurally. CIS Northwest Michigan serves eight districts across Antrim, Charlevoix, Kalkaska, and Otsego counties, where demand for healthcare, employment, and affordable housing outweighs access as more families across all of northern Michigan slip into ALICE status. (That is, households where the parents work but there still isn’t enough money to make ends meet.) Of those four counties, Kalkaska has the highest share of households at or below the ALICE threshold, at 44 percent.

Other hurdles that kids face during school hours are more nuanced as they ride out the ups and downs of self-esteem and friendships. As they do, one of the biggest disparities Burk sees for students across her network is “mental health services, hands down,” she says. “Even with social workers in schools, there aren’t enough providers.”

“Anything They Need to Be Successful”

While CIS coordinators can’t solve larger systemic issues like a shortage of healthcare access, they can act as anchors. Providing students with “anything they need to be successful inside and outside the classroom,” is what coordinators like East Jordan Elementary’s Chelsea Martin aim for each week.

That could mean offering in-school social and emotional skill building classes to kids sitting on a counselors waitlist, getting properly fitted shoes to a student who outgrew their last pair, or connecting parents with community resources that keep the heat running and put food on the table.

“Specifically to rural areas, I think resources are often spread out and can be difficult to access if you don’t know where or who to go to,” says Martin.

Meanwhile, Mancelona High School site coordinator Amy Derrer knows nearing the graduation finish line is the beginning of an all-new set of goals and challenges for students.

“Seniors this year are struggling with ‘what do I do after high school?’” Derrer hopes they’ll find an answer during the college fair that she organizes with more than 40 college representatives or at the school’s annual career fair that brings more than 30 local employers to her students and a peek at all of the different paths that lay before them.

She also coordinates college visits and employment site tours. And for students pursuing college—this year, 40 students submitted 112 total college applications—Derrer is there to help with the FAFSA process, free federal funding many of them don’t even realize they qualify for.

“Some students [and] families have always seen post-secondary as a barrier for them and never dreamed that college was an option,” says Derrer.

Some barriers, though, are a lot harder to work around.

At Kalkaska Middle School, Stapleton says that housing is scarce. “We have so many students and families trying to overcome homelessness.” And though she’s navigating DHS red tape with families, “Waiting lists are forever long,” leaving her students in limbo.

While Stapleton works to make a dent in those big-picture problems, she’s buffering them with the things she can control like handing off gifts for a parent to give to their kids on Christmas morning or delivering groceries to a student’s home to help nourish them before a big test.

“Those are the little things that matter and truly make a difference,” says Stapleton, who calls those moments her biggest work wins. “Relationships matter and being present matters,” she adds. “Our goal is to help not only our students but the families as well. Give them a step up to help them get back on track when needed.”

Learn more at cisnwmi.org.

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