Help From Where You Least Expect It

by Eric Cochling | Jul 8, 2021

Help From Where You Least Expect It

“I don’t know what I’m going to do if I don’t find a better job; I might have to go back [to prison].”

Two months out of prison, Ray (name changed for anonymity) was explaining to me that he had reached the end of his rope. He had been struggling to find work that paid enough so that he could simply afford the basics. His part-time, minimum-wage job, just wasn’t cutting it. But, at least it was something.

Ray had the added complication of having to take custody of his son shortly after being released, meaning another mouth to feed when he could barely feed himself.

During his most desperate days after leaving prison, Ray said he was blessed to have the help of local church ministries who provided temporary housing for him and his son at a local extended stay hotel. He called GCO because that assistance was running out. He needed more help so he could remain at the extended stay but, more than that, Ray knew he had to solve the job problem to have any hope of getting off the hamster wheel he was on.

“I’m “clean” and have no intention of going back to that life.”

With a record that included drug and property crimes, Ray worried he might not have a shot at a better job. “But I’m willing to do any job that pays enough,” he assured me.

With those details in hand, our team started looking for the resources Ray needed and found some great opportunities for him and his son. There was a local church ministry offering help with additional days in the extended stay motel, there was the local restaurant eager to interview Ray for a better-paying job.

In the end, help came from a place Ray least expected it: the extended stay motel owner himself.

After hearing Ray’s story and observing him on the motel property, he offered Ray a job as a maintenance technician, a position that also included room and board on the motel property – an answer to Ray’s prayer for better pay and housing stability for him and his son.

The Success Sequence provides an outline of how to reverse the cycle of poverty in our communities. GCO uses this as a framework for much of our work.

Like Ray, you might be surprised the motel owner stepped in to help the way he did, but you shouldn’t be. Many times, our local business owners bridge the gap for those in need in big and small ways – from helping support the nonprofits that serve emergency needs to, like the motel owner did for Ray, helping directly.

Too often, it’s business owners who get the negative press and little credit for the good they do. In reality, as Ray’s story reminds us, they are a huge part of the solution to poverty – both in the jobs they provide through their risk-taking and in their philanthropy made possible through the profits they generate.

Is this the end of Ray’s story? I don’t think so. Ray seems to have a drive that’s going to keep him reaching for better opportunities and, of course, if we can help him, we’ll be here to do that.

The point is that Ray’s story isn’t unique. For those reaching out and seeking help – for housing, for work, for food – there are often caring community members willing to help.

And sometimes that help comes from the place you least expect it.

If you or someone you know is struggling to find employment in Gwinnett or is looking for help to meet their basic needs, please visit www.betterworkgwinnett.org to find resources or to be connected to one of our “guaranteed-interview” employment partners.

GCO signed coalition letter urging policymakers to prioritize high-speed broadband in rural Georgia

by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Apr 20, 2021

GCO signed coalition letter urging policymakers to prioritize high-speed broadband in rural Georgia

The Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) has signed on to a coalition letter urging policymakers to prioritize the use of federal emergency dollars for high-speed broadband in rural, underserved areas of Georgia.The letter makes four recommendations:

Target funds to areas without access to high-speed broadband, defined as 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload
Avoid investments in government-owned networks
Reduce red tape around deployment
Ensure adequate resources for permitting approval

GCO’s take: “Broadband for rural areas should’ve been a priority prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, it’s an emergency,” said Buzz Brockway, GCO’s vice president of public policy. “Good Internet access will be a boon to rural Georgia. Broadband is also crucial for some of our state’s most vulnerable students, and expanding Internet access is closely aligned with GCO’s mission to expand educational opportunity. In the middle of all this, we can’t afford to get mired in bureaucratic red tape, either. That’s why we must avoid working through government-owned networks and instead quickly review and approve applications to get this done.”

GET BUZZ’D AT THE STATE CAPITOL

by Buzz Brockway | Mar 31, 2021

GET BUZZ’D AT THE STATE CAPITOL

A focus on the state legislature and the policies effecting Georgian’s everyday life.

Buzz Brockway, VP of Policy, is in downtown Atlanta at the state Capitol building, and walks us through the the last day or sine die of the legislative session.

Our state lawmakers create policies that better the lives of Georgians. Learn more about active legislation and how it translates into everyday life for all of us.

Educating our educators on Senate Bill 47

by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Mar 25, 2021

Educating our educators on Senate Bill 47

We have some great news to share! Lawmakers in the Georgia House are likely to take up Senate Bill 47 as soon as today. SB47 makes vital improvements and updates to the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Program in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an important way we can serve Georgia families and the special-needs community, as many of these students have been left behind due to school closures, learning loss, and lack of access to crucial therapies.

Among other key changes, SB47 would:

Expand the program to include a limited list of students with special needs (including autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, and dyslexia) who have a 504 plan and formal diagnosis from a licensed doctor.
Allow students who attended a public special needs preschool in Georgia to participate.
Allow students with special needs who are adopted from foster care to access the program immediately.
Make other updates to the scholarship program in line with the renewed need among families for help due to COVID-19.

Students are not all the same, so their education shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all model.

Sadly, the Georgia School Board Association is lobbying hard against SB47. The organization recently sent an email to supporters listing a number of objections to the measure and urging people to oppose it.

Here are those objections and our responses from the Georgia Center for Opportunity team:

“There is no requirement that a student be re-evaluated to determine the students’ continued needs or eligibility. For example, an elementary student might have an IEP to receive speech therapy that they would not need after a few years.”

This seems like a red herring. It’s unfair to burden both public school systems and parents with constant revaluations in an attempt to catch a handful who no longer warrant an Individualized Learning Plan (IEP) or 504 plan. This would also create a massive burden on schools to evaluate kids who are no longer in the public school system.

The bottom line is that if a child is succeeding in a new environment, that’s a good thing. It doesn’t mean we should take them away from that school and put them back in an environment where they were not succeeding. We must prioritize the needs of individual students and get them the help they need. That standard is even more important for our neighbors in the special-needs community.

“There is no requirement that a private school provide the services in the IEP or 504 plan that the taxpayers are funding them to receive.”

No, but parents aren’t going to send their child to a school (especially if they need to come out of pocket with resources to do so) if the school cannot or is not meeting the child’s needs.

“There is no report to the taxpayers as to whether the students are receiving services or not.”

“Receiving services” is not an indicator of success. Children who are enrolled in public schools are also “receiving services,” but if their families choose to leave based on this scholarship, those services presumably are not meeting their needs. Parents have their children in the school of their choice voluntarily and they aren’t going to choose a school that can’t meet their child’s needs.

“Parents must give up all federal rights under IDEA or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act to take the voucher.”

IDEA was something disability advocates had to fight for so that public schools would treat students with special needs the right way. IDEA rights only apply to public schools, so by definition if a child is not in public school, those specific rights do not apply.

This doesn’t mean that these students are being mistreated. In fact, a parent has the ability to leave any private school that isn’t serving their child well, which is currently not the case for public schools. If a child returns to public school at any time, their rights under IDEA are still fully intact.

An imperfect analogy: You carry insurance on your car in case something happens. Then you move to a large city and can either walk or take the subway everywhere, so you sell the car. Someone might say, “But you gave up your insurance!” No, you gave up your car.

“There has never been an independent evaluation of the voucher program so we have no idea about a number of things including its effectiveness.”

There is literally a report that comes out on the program every year that includes 40 pages or so of information including academic performance data.

Parental satisfaction has been the major measure for accountability for this program and nothing in this bill changes that. That is completely inconsistent with a belief in transparency and accountability for the use of taxpayer dollars.

The issue lands here: Providing quality education to all students should be the goal of our education system. That system must prioritize the needs of individual students and families. When quality education is not accessible to a child — for whatever reason — we must provide options. It is our responsibility to give each child a sense of purpose and belonging as we prepare them for their future.

Get Buzz’d At the state Capitol

by Buzz Brockway | Mar 17, 2021

Get Buzz’d At the state Capitol

A focus on the state legislature and the policies effecting Georgian’s everyday life.

Buzz Brockway, VP of Policy, is in downtown Atlanta at the state Capitol building, and walks us through the proposed changes to The Special Needs Scholarship, occupational licensing, a current protest, and more.

Our state lawmakers create policies that better the lives of Georgians. Learn more about active legislation and how it translates into everyday life for all of us.

Many Special Needs Students Have Struggled with Virtual Classes

by Buzz Brockway | Mar 16, 2021

Many Special Needs Students Have Struggled with Virtual Classes

For some students virtual classes during the past year have been fine. Some have even thrived. But for many special needs students, it has not gone well, as a parent tells the Georgia Center for Opportunity:

A virtual classroom worked fine for Jennifer’s two older children, but her youngest son, 10-year-old Joey, has Down syndrome. Online learning is entirely unworkable for him due to his special needs.

For example, DeKalb is following a normal bell schedule but staying engaged on Zoom for hours on end is not working. Morning classes will sometimes go well, but by lunchtime Joey is tuned out. It is impossible to get him back online after the lunch break for specials, such as music and art, and Jennifer cannot stay tied up until 2:30pm every day. She has seen academic and social regression for her son as he has little to no interaction with peers.

Additionally, his academic growth is limited due to repetitive practice of current skills on worksheets with no new individual instruction to learn new concepts in language arts or math. As a highly visual and experiential learner, he is missing the magic that happens in a classroom that cannot be replicated on a Zoom call.

“It’s day-by-day and minute-by-minute,” Jennifer shares. “One class he is engaged and on task, and the next minute he is hiding under the bed or taking his shirt off.”

All children, no matter their needs, deserve the opportunity for a high-quality education that meets their individual requirements.

Today, Axios wrote about a newly released report on 130 studies on the safety of school reopening. The report found:

Any benefits to closing schools are far outweighed by the grave risks to children from remote-only schooling — risks that intensify the longer it continues, the report says.
The harms include academic loss — so severe that it could set children back for life — and mental health problems related to loneliness and isolation.
There are also severe hardships on parents — mothers in particular, about two million of whom have left the workforce to care for their kids as part of remote learning.
“Schools are not super-spreaders,” observes the report, written by John P. Bailey, a former deputy policy director at the Department of Commerce.

Fortunately almost 73% of Georgia’s school districts are open for face to face learning. The rest need to reopen ASAP, and plans need to be made to help students who fell behind catch up.

This post originally appeared on PeachPundit.com on March 11, 2021.