Championship Extraordinaire

Vince Dooley, well-respected retired coach of the UGA Football Team and Athletic Director says he was inspired by meeting the mentors and being a part of the program at the 10th Annual Georgia Parent Mentor Conference in Athens, Georgia.

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Special Olympics 2011

ROTC cadet, Travis Harris lets nothing get in his way when it comes to achieving his goals. 

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Circle of Adults Focusing on Education (C.A.F.E)

The Ginger Henderson Story

Ginger Henderson is serving her sixth year as Meriwether County’s parent mentor, but she says, “I don’t think the schools really understood my role until we started doing the C.A.F.E.s,” which stands for Circles of Adults Focusing on Education.

“We started our C.A.F.E. three years ago as a family and community education pilot through the SPDG grant, (the State Personnel Development Grant).

We wrote this family engagement program for what was then Destination Graduation (now known as GraduateFIRST).  I have to say, I wasn’t really sure about it in the beginning. We had this guided dialogue with a group and until we started doing the process, I didn’t really see it,” she said.

Four years later, Manchester High School’s graduation rate has gone from 60% to 94.7% and it has made AYP two years in a row. Principal Dennis “Chip” Medders said the work of the CA.F.E. was a determining factor in the school’s success.

There were a couple of things that happened that first year to begin this successful road to graduation. “One of the most important things was putting the right people at the table, Henderson said, “and, getting the administration on board.”  It took a lot of hard work behind the scenes on Henderson’s part to do both.  Henderson and MHS Principal Medders formed a partnership during the beginning days of the C.A.F.E. – “the most important thing was getting the principal on board. So, we went from him hardly even knowing who I was, to traveling to Chicago to do a presentation about the success of our program.”

Principal Chip Medders

“He became the face of Manchester High School in the community. That was his school.”

Henderson said and that public identity was vital in this community of nearly 22,000. Henderson, herself a life-long resident, remembers Medders when he was a student.

“He thought he could go in there and save the world by himself,” she said. It wasn’t until this single parent, who struggled with the question of how to get her own son through high school, began to recruit others in the community to explain why improving the graduation rate was vital. Her story, plus Medders reaching out and asking for help beyond the brick and mortar of the school was what led to the change in Meriwether County.

Henderson continues to support the Manchester C.A.F.E.  but also  is working with GaDOE family engagement specialist and founder of the Georgia Parent Mentor Partnership, Patricia Solomon, to take the C.A.F.E.  idea to schools all around the nation.  They presented at the National Special Education Directors Conference in Chicago last October.

Her journey as a mentor started on unstable ground, “a lot of schools saw me as one of those people from the district office who is sent to tell on the schools,” she said.  Then, she brought in a facilitator to introduce the C.A.F.E. idea and the school people thought, “Oh, they brought this person in to tell us what to do.”  Henderson admits even she was a little skeptical at first. “Patti Solomon is such a good facilitator. She kept everyone on track. Having someone who was not from the district is helpful because people don’t know them and they don’t have an opportunity to go over old issues that take away from trying to develop a future plan,” Henderson said.

“What drove me was having a ninth grader who wanted to drop out,” she said. Her son, diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and a learning disability in reading made her aware that if you pay attention, you can identify those ninth graders who are thinking about dropping out and begin working with them early in the ninth grade year. She began hunting for the baseline graduation data and then another significant event occurred. “We were sitting on the front porch with the baseball coach and my son started talking. Because I raised him by myself, he didn’t have a male role model. This coach, taking the time to sit and talk with my son made a big impression on him,” she said. Last spring her son graduated with a regular education diploma.  “It takes everyone in the school making sure teachers and staff build those relationships with students,” she said.

Henderson’s family is living proof of the success of the CAFÉ program. Not only has the four-year track record yielded results, it also helped the parent mentor expand her program into other schools.

A C.A.F.E. Dialogue is a communication dynamic that is providing some Georgia high schools a vehicle to bring stakeholders to the table to understand, discuss and act on solutions to increase the graduation rate, particularly among students with disabilities.