How to Make Pie

The Journey of Turning Around Clark County Schools

In 2002, Clark County’s high school had a dropout rate of 8%, the third high­est in the state of Kentucky. I was the new Community Education Director, work­ing with any enti­ties in the coun­ty who want­ed to improve our schools for stu­dents and staff. The Chamber of Commerce Director at that time asked me what we could do to improve our dropout rate. As we dis­cussed this, I knew I could research solu­tions local­ly and with­in the nation­al Community Education net­work. Eventually, we set­tled on what seemed best for our com­mu­ni­ty: a call to edu­ca­tors, busi­ness own­ers and man­agers, par­ents, and non­prof­it direc­tors to come togeth­er to fig­ure out the best solutions.

Getting to know the community

Step back to the begin­ning of Community Education in 2021, after I had worked as the Migrant Student Advocate and Homeless Student Advocate for eleven years, most­ly simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. From 1990 to 2001, it was my job to help migrant and home­less fam­i­lies suc­ceed in their edu­ca­tion­al goals. That could mean help­ing a par­ent get to GED class­es or find­ing an alarm clock so a fam­i­ly could get up and ready for school on time. It could mean medi­a­tion between an edu­ca­tor and a par­ent or talk­ing to a stu­dent about why their home­work was not being turned in. I found I was talk­ing to many com­mu­ni­ty groups about the issues these groups faced and ask­ing for help—financial, men­tor­ing, or sim­ply under­stand­ing that these folks exist­ed in our com­mu­ni­ty and had needs that required edu­ca­tion on our part to be able to pro­vide edu­ca­tion to them.

I found that our com­mu­ni­ty too often exist­ed in silos. Our pub­lic school sys­tem was gen­er­al­ly referred to as the Board of Education, as if the Board mem­bers were in charge. The pub­lic was nei­ther involved nor invit­ed to learn about the laws gov­ern­ing the Board and how it made its deci­sions. Not many admin­is­tra­tors or teach­ers were tru­ly aware of the issues faced by stu­dents and fam­i­lies who were not from here or not like them. 

Churches were the same. The news­pa­per was the same and had a rep­u­ta­tion for not print­ing any­thing neg­a­tive about those with pow­er in the com­mu­ni­ty. Civic orga­ni­za­tions were the same, even as they strove to help with school cloth­ing and activ­i­ties for low-income stu­dents. Most non­prof­its were only aware of the par­tic­u­lar pop­u­la­tion they served, and before the inter­net were not exposed to the lat­est research, exper­i­ments, and ideas on how best to serve. I want­ed to fig­ure out how to bring the com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er and inform the silos.

One strength our com­mu­ni­ty had was a good work­ing rela­tion­ship between the coun­ty and city gov­ern­ments. Both want­ed what was best for our com­mu­ni­ty and worked togeth­er to achieve bet­ter poli­cies. Another strength we had was the Human Services Committee. Organized by my men­tor Joe Ann Dove (deceased), long before I arrived in Clark County, it is a month­ly lunchtime meet­ing to which all human ser­vices orga­ni­za­tions are invit­ed. Each per­son shared their name, orga­ni­za­tion, the ser­vices they pro­vid­ed, and, most impor­tant­ly, what they had to offer and what they needed. 

I began attend­ing in 1987 when I worked in sup­port­ed employ­ment. It was a trea­sure trove of infor­ma­tion about the his­to­ry of the ser­vices, how and why var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions did what they did, and who was who in the com­mu­ni­ty. Attendance has waxed and waned, but the group still meets to address com­mu­ni­ty needs. I believe this group has been para­mount in tear­ing down the silos and help­ing our non­prof­it groups learn that work­ing togeth­er is far more pro­duc­tive than keep­ing their resources to them­selves. Our com­mu­ni­ty has an advan­tage in help­ing those who need it by keep­ing this group intact.

Advocating as the new Community Education Department

I was new here then, and per­haps some­what naïve as well as less than diplo­mat­ic. However, I began to speak to all the groups and silos to explain the needs of the fam­i­lies I knew and to ask for the things that would fill those needs.  I tried to go to those who expressed inter­est in help­ing, and some­times peo­ple came to me to offer help. I nev­er spoke of “the Board of Education.” By sim­ply chang­ing the lan­guage to “the pub­lic school sys­tem,” mag­ic hap­pened. The school sys­tem was less of a silo of five elect­ed offi­cials to the rest of the com­mu­ni­ty and instead became seen as all the bus dri­vers, mechan­ics, aides, cafe­te­ria staff, teach­ers, prin­ci­pals, PTAs and PTOs, and many more behind the scenes, as it should be.

I also elect­ed to attend every pos­si­ble school board meet­ing and to present a writ­ten report after each school year to let the board mem­bers, staff, and par­ents who attend­ed know who in the com­mu­ni­ty was help­ing us, the pub­lic school sys­tem. I wrote press releas­es for the local news­pa­per. This way, the pub­lic could see the good things going on in our schools with local gov­ern­ment, busi­ness­es, and non­prof­its. I saw the silos begin to open up and come together.

This did not hap­pen overnight or in a few years. This is one of the things that helped to teach me some patience. I also received lessons in diplo­ma­cy from my boss and men­tor, Joe Jones.

Forming PIE

In 2003, thanks to the Chamber of Commerce, about six­ty peo­ple came togeth­er at a meet­ing to dis­cuss solu­tions to the county’s high dropout rate. Ideas were gen­er­at­ed. Partners In Education (PIE) was cre­at­ed. Around twen­ty com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers showed up con­sis­tent­ly to plan the best way to imple­ment solutions. 

We rec­og­nized that it was a com­mu­ni­ty prob­lem, not just a school sys­tem issue, and that the com­mu­ni­ty need­ed to come togeth­er to solve it. Data show that if chil­dren are not read­ing on tar­get by their fourth-grade year, their chances of suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ing their edu­ca­tion are far less than those of their peers. One-to-one or small groups were best to help stu­dents catch up and get ahead. Mentors who show stu­dents they care about them are as impor­tant as teach­ing skills. We want­ed our stu­dents to have good role mod­els in the form of adults who enjoyed learn­ing. The idea was that busi­ness­es would recruit employ­ees will­ing to spend one paid hour per week at schools to tutor and men­tor stu­dents. We were also hap­py to accept as spon­sors those busi­ness­es that could pro­vide finan­cial sup­port, but not vol­un­teer assis­tance. Within a few years, we were hap­py to add church­es and non­prof­its as part­ners and sponsors.

We start­ed with ele­men­tary schools to tar­get those ear­ly skills. We even­tu­al­ly spread to all grades. Some groups were tar­get­ed, such as sci­ence class­es by indus­tries like Catalent and health class­es by Clark Regional Medical Center.

A successful nonprofit

PIE was ini­tial­ly a pro­gram of the Clark County Community Education Program. Betty Berryman was hired to be the part-time direc­tor. An advi­so­ry com­mit­tee, com­pris­ing twen­ty inter­est­ed indi­vid­u­als and Betty, deter­mined that the pro­gram need­ed to be a sep­a­rate non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion, as many grants were not offered to tax­ing enti­ties like pub­lic school sys­tems. Some projects required fund­ing, as well as salary and admin­is­tra­tive needs, and the com­mit­tee, which became the PIE board of direc­tors, was eager to raise those funds.

In 2014, Betty retired, and the board hired Greg Yates. Projects added include BUG (Bringing Up Grades), a Kiwanis International pro­gram designed to help third graders meet their read­ing goals. Bucks for Books began with grant funds from the Steele-Reese Foundation to pro­vide ele­men­tary schools with funds to pur­chase books for low-income chil­dren dur­ing school book fairs. BAM (Be A Man) was devel­oped to help younger male stu­dents gain male role mod­els and hear their sto­ries of becom­ing adults with val­ues and who believe in life­long learn­ing, and that now also includes inter­me­di­ate, junior, and senior high stu­dents. GLOW (Girls Learning from Other Women) enables young women in inter­me­di­ate, junior, and senior high schools to explore var­i­ous career path­ways, learn how to pur­sue them, and over­come obsta­cles to success.

PIE saw some changes dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, but per­sist­ed. There are now 20 part­ners, 14 cor­po­rate spon­sors (some enti­ties are both), and 124 vol­un­teers giv­ing back to our com­mu­ni­ty by enhanc­ing the qual­i­ty of instruc­tion­al ser­vices pro­vid­ed to students. 

How to make PIE? Make con­nec­tions in our com­mu­ni­ty that edu­cate us all.