HARRISBURG, Pa. — The new school year is right around the corner, and thousands of kids throughout the Commonwealth will be making their way back to class.
One local nonprofit will also be going back to school, helping students who are regularly missing class.
“Our staff are working to reengage those students in a very grassroots movement," Jessica Knapp said.
Knapp is the vice president of Communities in Schools of PA, an organization dedicated to preventing dropouts. She says her staff works with 11 local school districts to remove non-academic barriers to success in school.
“Whether that’s hunger, housing insecurity, whether students have unmet health or mental health needs," Knapp said. "We try to remove all those barriers by placing full-time staff in schools to really support students in a holistic way.”
Knapp says her organization has seen an increase of students at risk of dropping out of school. In the latest data from the PA Department of Education, Pennsylvania had a dropout rate of 1.2% among 7th through 12th graders in the 2020-21 school year.
She says Communities in Schools serviced between 11,000 and 13,000 students last year, and says the pandemic played a large role in that increase.
“All of the students, not just in Central PA but nationally, missed these critically important years of social and emotional learning," Knapp said.
Knapp says her organization is prepared to work alongside school counselors to help all students with any potential needs in order to keep them coming to school.
“Our staff are really working hard with the social workers, guidance counselors, and mental health professionals already based in school to make sure we’re not letting any kids fall through the cracks,” Knapp said.