Members of the I Have a Dream Foundation-Milwaukee cohort, who are now second graders at Milwaukee Academy of Sciences, pose with a check from Old National Bank along with school staff, nonprofit executive director, Dan Schiller (center) and leaders from the bank. (submitted photo)
When the Milwaukee chapter of the I Have a Dream Foundation (IHAD–MKE) launched in 2007 with its first cohort of students – first graders at Clarke Street School – its focus was primarily on ensuring the low income students had the money and scholastic supports they needed to pursue a university or technical college degree.
When the Milwaukee chapter of the I Have a Dream Foundation (IHAD–MKE) launched in 2007 with its first cohort of students – first graders at Clarke Street School – its focus was primarily on ensuring the low income students had the money and scholastic supports they needed to pursue a university or technical college degree.
Sixteen years later, the program has a new group of students, new leadership, and a more all-encompassing approach to its mission – one with a greater focus on supporting the families of the students it serves.
With the students in the first cohort now mostly all graduated from some form of post-secondary institution, the nonprofit began serving a new group of students last fall at Milwaukee Academy of Science thanks to a $4 million fundraising campaign launched last year by IHDF national board member Barry Mandel and IHDF-MKE board chair and Legacy Bank founder Margaret Henningsen.
So far, the nonprofit has raised about $1.7 million of that goal, with $500,000 of those funds earmarked for post-secondary scholarships for the 90 students in its new cohort. The remaining $1.2 million has been allocated for staffing and services. Donors to the effort have included Barry Mandel, Brewers Community Foundation, Old National Bank, and Kohl Philanthropies.
One of about half a dozen local IHDF chapters across the country, IHDF-MKE provides individualized social, emotional, and academic support to students from low income communities from kindergarten through college, along with guaranteed tuition support. The program’s goal is to keep students and families together as a cohort for at least 12 years. It also provides up to $10,000 of tuition assistance for students.
Expanded services
[caption id="attachment_580638" align="alignleft" width="300"] Dan Schiller[/caption]
While IHDF-MKE had the goal of supporting student families from its inception, the new funding, has and will allow the nonprofit to hire the staffing necessary to truly put that mission into motion, explained Dan Schiller, the nonprofit’s new executive director.
Hired to lead IHDF-MKE in September, Schiller has spent the last 17 years working for local youth and family services organizations. In his last role, he served as executive director for the PEAK Initiative, a nonprofit that partners with Milwaukee-area schools and serves hundreds of students through summer camp experiences, after-school, school-day and weekend programming aimed at bringing out the potential of young leaders in the community.
“I would say the program is similar in the sense that there are scholarship dollars committed for the students who are participants, but it's really different in that there's a lot more infrastructure to support students and families,” said Schiller of the new IHAD-MKE.
In its original incarnation, IHDF-MKE was more of a “board-led initiative,” Schiller said, with only one staff member who was doing the work to maintain connection and contact with the students and their families, trying to provide them with the resources and networking opportunities.
“The major difference here is our focus on a couple of pillars of youth development, with social-emotional learning, being really central to that,” Schiller said. “I would also say our focus on parents and families, which includes some case management support, is really central as well. A lot of it is making sure that our ‘Dreamers,’ who are now in second grade, have the things that they need to be successful when they show up at school.”
Staffing
That means spending a lot of time and operational dollars, focusing on staffing, Schiller said.
Since establishing itself at the Milwaukee Academy of Science, IHDF-MKE has hired a mentor coordinator who is helping to bring engaged and committed mentors into the school community and connect those mentors with kids who want to work with them.
In the second grade, where the Dreamers are right now, their work with mentors is really focused on literacy, Schiller said, so the mentors are often doubling as tutors. As the students grow, however, those relationships will become more individualized.
Then there is the family engagement and program coordinator, whose primary focus is on connecting families with resources and each other.
“In our community, we don't have neighborhood schools anymore. Milwaukee Academy of Science serves 26 different zip codes,” Schiller said. “And so, it's really a catalyst and a support for social connectivity among families and also helping families, like I said, connect to resources. And that’s not just helping them get to the door, it’s helping them navigate those resources to ensure they actually receive them.”
The organization has also received support through indirect funding from Northwestern Mutual via the United Way, to support a dedicated “housing navigator” through social services nonprofit Community Advocates.
Right now, the housing navigator has mainly been addressing crisis situations any families in the cohort might be facing – working to ensure they have a safe place to live if they are facing eviction or homelessness. Going forward, the hope is that the navigator, and partners like Acts Housing, can do more proactive work to ensure families can avoid such housing crises.
In the future, the nonprofit also hopes to dedicate more funds and time to serving students’ and families’ mental health care needs, especially given the dearth of mental and behavioral health services available to children in the region.
“When we talk to families, the needs are mental and behavioral health. And we're trying to navigate that right now because for everyone there's such a wait list and such a backlog for access to care,” Schiller said. “There's a month to a year wait list for some of these services. So, we're trying to figure out how we can navigate that and bring resources to the school community.”
Impact Anthony McHenry, the president and chief executive officer of Milwaukee Academy of Science (MAS), has already been encouraged by the IHDF-MKE programming that the school’s now second graders have received.
A 4K-12th grade charter school, MAS has about 1,400 students, with enrollment steadily increasing each year. Many of those students, including its Dreamers, come from low-income families who face housing and food insecurity on a daily basis.
“We've had a lot of success and additional support in responding to the challenges that some of our families are facing, in particular with homelessness and being able to help stabilize housing,” McHenry said.
The Dreamers are also benefitting from the extra support staff that have been able to assist in literacy instruction, he said, adding that the school has a growing list of mentors that are supporting the kids both in the classroom and socially as well.
“Maybe the most important thing our school is trying to do, is make sure our kids are functional readers by the third grade,” he said.
McHenry added that he is also excited to get IHDF-MKE’s help in getting more Dreamers to participate in MAS’ afterschool programs. Through the nonprofit’s support, he said the school has been able to get more students to participate in the program than ever before. IHDF-MKE has also helped to get more students signed up for MAS’ summer school program as well as summer recreational activities hosted by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee.
“MAS does a really good job of trying to communicate with parents through a variety of mediums, but most of those mediums are through technology. What I Have a Dream allows us to do is to have a person that can pick up the phone and call these parents and get them connected to a variety of resources, including afterschool programs,” McHenry said.
Improved retention
Where both IHDF-MKE and MAS have seen an impact with the revamped programming is in retention. And while MAS has long had a high retention rate, there has been an even greater retention rate among the school’s Dreamers.
“Retention is one of the really important factors for us or any other school,” McHenry said, “Because it allows us to really have some significant academic gains. The retention (among the Dreamers) is going to be a tremendous benefit by allowing our staff to be able to work with the kids year after year.”
For Schiller, the increased retention rate is encouraging, especially since working in a 4k-12th grade school will provide a greater chance for the Dreamers to stay in contact with the nonprofit and their fellow cohort members as they continue their primary and secondary school education.
“Research has shown that keeping kids in one school community for stability, especially one like Milwaukee Academy of Science, leads to good outcomes,” Schiller said.
Looking ahead
As the nonprofit looks ahead, it is working to build and strengthen the relationships it has with its Dreamers, their families, and community organizations that can help IHDF-MKE better serve them.
As it prepares for a big fundraising push in 2024, the organization is still working to establish itself in the school community.
“That's a pretty critical piece of what we're doing, building trust and relationship, but also doing some needs assessment so we're not painting with a broad brush. We're getting a deeper understanding of the situational needs of each family,” Schiller said. “It's about being ever present, so our families have a consistent support that they're familiar with."
