Communities in Schools of Philadelphia Inc.

“The finance committee of the board reviews the 990 with the management. They then vote to recommend approving the 990 to be sent for filing.”

“All members are required to file a conflict of interest form with the organization annually at the beginning of the fiscal year.”

“Organization had a study done by independent company to determine the salary ranges of the top management staff. Salary ranges are then maintained by the board of directors and adjusted accordingly.”

“Same process as top official.”

“The governing documents, conflict of interest policy and financial statements of the organization are available to the public upon request.”

“Their goals. Cis of philadelphia also supports young people by deploying the best in technology based academic supports, which target learning challenges. Communities in schools model is proven to be effective: the department of education's what works clearinghouse compared the results of a 5-year, independent, rigorous evaluation of the communities in schools model with over 1,600 studies of a similar scope. It concluded that the communities in schools model is associated with the strongest reduction in dropout rates among all existing, fully scaled, dropout prevention programs in the united states. Specific findings included: communities in schools' positive effect on both dropout rates and graduation rates is unique among dropout prevention programs; the higher the level of fidelity to the communities in schools model, the greater the effects, which validates the power of the model; positive effects accrued to schools across states, settings (urban, suburban, rural), grade levels and ethnicities; and the austin randomized controlled trial, which demonstrated a reduction in student dropout rates that was nearly three times the what works clearinghouse's (the department of education's gold standard for education programs) threshold for "substantively important" effects. Over the past year, cis of philadelphia has seen success in: urban technology project over the past fifteen years, in partnership with the school district of philadelphia, cis of philadelphia developed a program to address digital inclusion issues within philadelphia. This program, the urban technology project, provides urban youth with opportunities for meaningful access to information technology tools and education, promoting ownership of knowledge, problem solving, and self-reliance. The youth, in turn, use the acquired it skills to address community issues and problems. Digital service fellows (dsf) is a full time americorps pre-apprenticeship program for recent philadelphia high school graduates who have an interest both in serving their communities and in pursuing the information technology (i.t.) field. The dsf program is distinguished by its workforce development model that simultaneously provides young people with 21st century skills while also providing a valuable service to the school community. Digital service fellows learn under the guidance of a school district of philadelphia i.t. Professional and actively apply skills learned to install new or repair broken equipment in schools and leading in and after school technology programs and workshops. Upon completing a full term (1700 hours), digital service fellows earn a 5730.00 segal education award that can be used toward higher education costs. The school district of philadelphia and communities in school of philadelphia, inc. (cis of philadelphia) have partnered to create the computer support specialist (css) program to provide additional technical support to fifteen schools and five selected central offices. The css initiative is a registered it apprenticeship program with the pennsylvania department of labor and industry - the only program of its kind in the state. Now in its fourteenth year, the css program builds upon the digital service fellows initiative, which offers recent school district of philadelphia high school graduates the opportunity to serve for one year as information technology apprentices with district master technicians. Computer support specialists are primarily recruited from the pool of qualified digital service fellows alumni and graduates of district technology programs. For those css completing the apprenticeship program, they achieve the journeyperson certification, which prepares them to work in start up it companies, government agencies, big box stores and other school districts. Performance learning center this program is modeled after the performance learning centers (plc's) developed by cis of georgia. Cis of philadelphia provides a unique, nontraditional learning”