HomePostTopic: Norcross

Norcross

I may be dating myself, but there used to be a radio show that I enjoyed entitled “Calling all Cars.” The title of the show was based on a saying used in the show that was merely an order given to all available units that there was something wrong – like a crime in progress – and help was needed immediately. There were two reasons that I liked that show. First, the episodes were based on real-life stories. Secondly, and most importantly, I liked the idea of having a mantra or a call to action that brought people together to help others.

Today there are a lot of families who need help because they are struggling – to form, to remain healthy, or stay together. And the causes for the struggles families face are many – lack of education, unstable employment, communication problems, or misplaced government assistance. Georgia Center of Opportunity is currently working with community partners through the Healthy Families Initiative to remove many of these barriers with the goal of helping all Georgians enjoy a healthy family life.

The Healthy Families Initiative kicked off this month in the Norcross and Peachtree Corners communities as a means to combat the issues in life that keep families from forming and thriving. Through the initiative, we are providing tools to individuals, couples, and partner organizations that will allow them champion and experience healthy relationships and strong marriages.

The collaboration of the community is extremely vital to this program. The community can engage in fostering the growth of this program in a number of ways, including by offering prayer for this initiative, as well as prayer for those teaching and participating in the classes. When this program is successful, the entire community will reap the rewards of more children being born to their married parents, growing up in homes characterized by healthy relationships, and living lives free of poverty and deprivation.

We’re asking for prayer teams to become our partners in prayer for one month. If we can have a church every month praying for those in the Norcross and Peachtree Corners area, think of how many families that can be helped! We really need your prayers, and can provide a detailed prayer list. If you or your organization would like to find out more, please email me at joyce.whitted@georgiaopportunity.org or call @ 770-242-0001 x707. We really need your help!

Below are some of the items, donated by many of our generous community members and businesses, which you can bid on at the Breakthrough Showcase event on November 15th. All funds raised will go to support Breakthrough Norcross and its partner organizations.

Click here to see more about the event.

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Breakthrough Norcross, after nearly two years of working toward establishing a collective impact project to improve educational outcomes for Norcross students, partnered with Beaver Ridge Elementary to offer a Robotics camp for their rising fourth and fifth graders. Students who are interested in the subject of Robotics were able to sign up for a weeklong day camp over the summer, and, as a  part of my summer internship with Georgia Center for Opportunity, I had the opportunity to check out what was going on at the Robotics Camp ­– dubbed Beaver Bots – last Thursday.

Environmentally, the robotics room is a collection of the parts, programs, and challenges for the robots that would be the primary tool of the weeklong camp. Two teachers facilitate the camp for approximately 30 students, who all spend most of their time in the robotics room. The Mindstorms, as the machines are officially named, are designed by Lego with the capacity to carry out a series of complex tasks. Various challenge courses are then set up in order to test the robots and their human operator through a diverse array of task completion.beaver bots1

The teachers lead each of the kids through the tasks at a very basic level that eventually handed over full reign of the robots and their programming to the kids. In fact, the teachers made it their mission to equip and not baby their students, and the kids loved it. The kids would cheer each other on through their successes and encourage each other through their missteps. Both boys and girls were learning to wrestle with the complex tasks assigned to them, and this development of perseverance – or grit as some call it – served as the crux for success in future tasks for the club.beaver bots

One of the students was so excited about her experience there that she couldn’t help but exclaim how much she loved working with her friends and other students. She remarked that it wasn’t about winning or losing, although that was a component of the camp; but it was about trying your hardest and having fun with friends.

Of course, there were winners and losers, but the winners encouraged the losers, and the losers cheered on the winners; and everyone was having fun. Furthermore, and most significantly, the kids were not criticizing each other for their initial shortcomings on the challenge field. In fact, they outright refused to submit to failure, consistently returning to  the drawing board until they found success.beaver bots2

Kids are playing with robots, encouraging each other, and carving a pathway into higher learning. It sounds utopic and in some regards it really is. It’s the start of something great, albeit unfinished. It’s just one small part of a larger story that’s unfolding through Breakthrough Norcross, and I have a feeling that the best is yet to come.

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This blog was written by Patrick DeMartino.  Patrick is pursuing a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Georgia.  This is his second summer interning with GCO working to support our Solution Delivery work.

Too often, parents in Georgia who have access to great school choice options fail to take advantage of them because many parents do not know that they exist. This is a constant dilemma that the school choice movement faces. To help address this, we partnered with all-girls charter school Ivy Preparatory Academy in Norcross to host a School Choice Lunch & Learn last month. Most of the parents, surprisingly, knew of their individual school choice options for their students. Some shared stories of how their pursuits were failed attempts because they lacked charter school options in their districts or because the financial assistance they were eligible for from the special needs scholarship left them with a remaining tuition balance far beyond what they could afford.

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Though we have choice options (i.e. public school transfers, special needs scholarship, tax credit scholarships, and charter schools), this event helped to confirm for me that Georgia still has a long way to go to ensure that families are not limited in access to quality education because of their lack of income or the zip code in which they live.

 

“Georgia still has a long way to go to ensure that families are not limited in access to quality education”

 

Together, we can make a difference in the school choice movement and expand available options for students in need of better education or learning environments. I am so proud of those who attended and shared their personal stories and challenges in pursuing school choice. These parents also expressed their strong desire to stay engaged in the movement because they know too well how it feels not to have access to viable choice options and they want to remove these barriers for generations to come. Will you join them in this movement?

If you are interested in learning more about school choice or would like to become an advocate, please visit the Georgia Parents Alliance.

A wise friend once said to me, “Know where you’re going before you start running.” For any successful organization, having a solid and precise mission is an imperative. The Breakthrough Ambassadors recently selected their first class of senior ambassadors to accomplish this imperative for the Breakthrough Ambassadors program.

The Breakthrough Ambassadors evolved out of the Breakthrough Norcross collective impact initiative. The inaugural class of approximately 100 students will be exposed to special opportunities such as meeting with executives and professionals from a variety of sectors, and receiving career training and career pathway orientation.

By establishing a precise mission, purpose and characteristics, the Breakthrough Ambassadors now have a clear understanding of how their organization will benefit not only ambassadors but also the community in which they are serving.

Breakthrough Ambassador mission:

  • To remove barriers to opportunity in order to provide everyone with an equal chance to succeed.

Breakthrough Ambassador purpose:

  • A mentoring organization that provides service, leadership development, and networking  opportunities to enhance post high school success

Breakthrough Ambassador characteristics:

  • Innovative- Focus on generating new ideas to solve community challenges
  • Engaged- Operate at a grassroots level to stay relevant to, and to learn from, the communities we serve
  • Influential- Conduct ourselves to develop the expertise, talent and network of relationship to enhance our ability to bring change
  • Trusted- Strive to be reliable, experienced and honest in all we do

Breakthrough Ambassadors will now serve through the broader Breakthrough Norcross Community collective impact network by assisting partners who are working to improve our community. These ambassadors will carry this mission through life as they grow into our future community leaders.

GCO’s Breakthrough Communities initiative is modeled, in part, on the collective impact framework developed by the Strive Partnership in Cincinnati, OH.  Over the past few months we have participated in numerous opportunities to learn from Strive, most recently we attended Strive Together’s third annual Cradle-to-Career Network Convening, in Dallas, TX.

To kick the convening off Jeff Edmondson, Strive Together Managing Director, shared a  list of “Knowledge Nuggets” that he had gathered over his years of work in the world of educational collective impact.  Below are a few that resonated with the work that is taking place in our first Breakthrough Community, Peachtree Corners & Norcross.

 

“I don’t care where it lives, I care how it behaves.” 

One of the first questions I was asked at the convening was, “Where do you live?” To which, I answered “Buford, GA.”   The woman asking the question was quick to clarify what she was asking, “No, What is your anchor entity?  Where does your partnership live?”    Now I get it.  I shared briefly about GCO and how it is serving to support the Breakthrough PCN initiative.   This really framed this Knowledge Nugget for me.  One axiomatic realization from the Convening is that there is no normal for cradle to career partnerships.   Some “live” in universities, others in United Ways, some in community foundations,  a cohort are backed by chambers of commerce.  The bottom line is that it should not matter what organization is serving as an anchor entity or backbone support role, what matters is behavior – how successfully is the partnership achieving its collective impact goals.

 

“There is a difference between engaged and committed.”

This resonated with me immediately.  Of course, as one sits across a table from a community leader and brings up the topic of education the leader will be engaged in the conversation.  Often community leaders will even be very excited about the efforts that are developing.  However, what keeps the wheels of collective impact turning is not engagement, but undoubtedly, commitment.  The process simply requires an organizational trust and vulnerability that all but prohibits success without the true long-term commitment of all involved parties.

 

“Action looks different now.”

Why must you be committed?  Because, inevitably, this process is going to open your eyes to ways that action is going to change.  Whether you are a funder who has to learn to look past outputs to true measurable outcomes, a non-profit who realizes that a program is ineffective and must be modified or eliminated, or maybe a business who realizes that the true battle ground for work force development is not what you expected – action looks different.  There is no room in collective impact for a program that doesn’t push an indicator. Collective impact depends upon continuous improvement, and always pushing toward what proves to be the best solution.   It was clear in discussions with partnership directors from around the country that action does look different now.

 

Through efforts to begin developing a collective impact here in the Norcross and Peachtree Corners communities, we are seeing the truth of these simple quotes lived out, and learning how deeply interconnected they are.  The reality is, what matters about an intervention or support program is not who provides it or where it is offered – what should be the bottom line is its efficacy.    However, growing that perspective requires some collaboration, which will demand the commitment of involved parties.  Ultimately, as this starts to happen action will begin to look very different – and hopefully fare more successful!

Who is responsible for our children’s education? Parents? Schools? Most would probably quickly agree that these parties are of paramount importance in insuring the education of future generations. However, what if businesses, faith-based groups, and non-profits were added to that list? What if there was community-wide shared responsibility for education?

Norcross high school is ranked 8th in Georgia.  It boasts numerous athletic state championships, and is an International Baccalaureate World School  — carrying a rigorous curriculum track that attracts students from other districts across Gwinnett County.   However, only 70% of NHS students graduated in 2012.

At first glance, many would be shocked at this reality. How does a school of this undeniable high academic quality produce a graduation rate barely above the state average (69.72% in 2012)?  In order to fairly answer that question, it helps go a few layers deeper into school data.

The Norcross cluster served just under 12,000 students in the 2011-2012 school year, of which 25% were classified as English learners and 72% as economically disadvantaged. The state averages for those classifications are 5% and 57%, respectively. This reveals a valuable insight: there are complexities impeding education that are rooted outside of the classroom.  Given the external factors in place, Norcross is truly doing a phenomenal job at educating our children.

Demographic trends show that these emerging complexities are only growing in scope.  So what is the solution?

You probably guessed it…that old “ it takes a village” cliché; except with a bit of a twist.  Granted, the parent and teacher have a bit different role than the town blacksmith, but the blacksmith should still have a great interest in the education of his future clientele.

Because a community is impacted by its schools (e.g., property values, attractiveness to employers, etc), it should take a vested interest in their performance.  As evidenced by the Strive Partnership in Cincinnati, OH, cross-sector community investment in education is proven to effect significant change in educational outcomes.  They have adopted a philosophy of varied accountability, but a fully shared responsibility.

Breakthrough Communities is GCO’s approach to taking the proverbial bull by the horns in the Norcross school cluster.  We believe that by establishing a community-wide common agenda, participating in mutually reinforcing activities, utilizing shared data measures, and implementing continuous improvement, we can see the systems of support changed for our students.

Imagine how student performance could be changed if after school programs, summer day camps, community based mentoring efforts, tutoring initiatives, and teachers were all watching the same numbers, and each one knew exactly how their efforts played an integral role in improving those numbers.

What if, through a collective alignment of efforts, the Norcross High graduation rate increased to 90%?  Don’t you think that the benefit of that change would impact more than the additional graduates and their families?  The represented cohort of 195 graduates would increase the gross state product by $3.1 million each year and spend an additional $215,000 each year exclusively on purchasing vehicles.

So, next time you read an article or hear a news report that is blasting poor school performance, stop and ask yourself two questions:  1) What is the rest of the story behind the alleged poor performance numbers?  2) How can you be a part of changing the future realities for students?

 

Meet Healthy Families Initiative Certified Trainer Janae Combs, MA, LPC, NCC

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Janae is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) with over 16 years of experience counseling adults, couples, families and adolescents. She has worked in multiple capacities ranging from psychiatric hospitals, residential facilities, support services, placement agencies and currently private practice.

Over the course of the next few months, Janae will be facilitating the “Sex Lies and Relationships” course for both adults and youth.

“The relationship courses offered through the Healthy Families Initiative fit right into the methods I use to help my clients. I would love to see the programs expand statewide, so more people can take advantage of the quality curriculum offered.”

Believing that most people instinctually know what is best for them
and their situations, Janae uses a growth-oriented approach in helping her clients create positive life changes. These changes will inevitably enhance and build on their existing strengths, insights, and skills while they cultivate new ones.

“Sometimes you don’t know where life is going to lead you, but it’s best to be prepared for the journey along the way and your destination.”


Many Georgia families are struggling relationally and financially. Divorce is common, and cohabitation and unwed childbirth are on the rise. Even many families that remain intact struggle to cover basic living expenses. You might not know where to begin to help.

The Healthy Families Initiative (HFI) is a community-based collaboration between individuals, churches, and businesses focused on transforming relationships and families in the Norcross and Peachtree Corners area. Our goal is to increase healthy relationships, family formation and stability, and decrease childbearing outside of marriage.

For more information about the Healthy Families Initiative (HFI) or to register for FREE classes, visit https://foropportunity.org/initiatives/hfi/

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