The idea behind Communities In Schools is really a very simple one.

Millions of young people in our country need additional help to succeed in school and prepare for life. These children bring challenges to school every day: Their parent or parents may be living in poverty, or on welfare, or a guardian may be raising them. Often they have no health insurance. They may not expect to succeed because no one in their family has ever graduated from high school. Or these children may simply be hungry, cold or frightened by the neighborhood they live in.

Whatever the causes, it's estimated that more than 9 million young people are at risk of failure in school. That's no surprise: How well do you think you would do at math or English under such adverse conditions?

There was a time when extended families and close-knit neighborhoods could band together and help meet children's needs when the immediate family was in trouble. But for the most part, those days are gone - now the public schools are expected to fill the gap.

On the one hand, this makes good sense. The school is perhaps the last true center of the community. It's the one place where children are supposed to show up every day. And traditionally, the community supports and respects what schools stand for. We expect them to be safe, helpful and nurturing places.

But on the other hand, educators already have full-time jobs, often carried out under very difficult circumstances. How then can we expect teachers and administrators to also be mentors, social workers, counselors, big sisters and brothers - and still get any teaching done or run the schools? It's just too much to expect from anyone, no matter how dedicated.

This is where Communities In Schools comes in.

CIS says: Why not bring some help into the schools? Why not create a small team of caring adults who can make sure that children's non-academic needs are being met? That way, teachers can be freed up to teach, principals can focus on managing the school, and children can concentrate on learning.

CIS also says: The typical community is full of adults who want to help, who are qualified to help, and in many cases are paid to help. For example, municipal and county health agencies are eager to improve services to young people. Local businesses are often strongly motivated to give back to the community by volunteering and mentoring with students. Local colleges and universities welcome opportunities for graduate students in social work and psychology to intern in the public schools.

But there are two problems: None of these people work together - in fact, sometimes they don't even know each other - and they don't bring their skills directly into the schools where the kids are.

Communities In Schools acts as a "broker." At the school superintendent's invitation, we make an assessment of the most pressing needs of the young people and families served by the school system. Consulting with district staff and principals, we select one or more schools to serve as CIS sites. Then we go around to all the helping resources - mentoring programs, health care providers, local businesses, university departments, recreation programs, drug and alcohol education programs - and seek ways to bring their services into the schools.

This can be an incredibly cost-effective response to meeting children's needs, since in some cases, no additional outlay for salary is required.

CIS works with a team of school staff and service providers, helping to identify the needs of the school populations and make sure those needs are addressed.  A CIS “project director” or “site coordinator” works to ensure that resources are matched with individual students’ needs, and, using a CIS designed online tracking tool, measures the students' improvement, and reports this information back to the state office.