Did you know that Communities In Schools (CIS) of Northeast Texas serves students on 40 campuses in 13 school districts and nine counties? Administered by Northeast Texas Community College, CIS has 44 employees on staff that provide services to students to help overcome barriers to their success. CIS recently held their annual back to school training for the 2024-2025 school year. CIS Coordinators convened for two days of education and training that included:
- Updates on Local, State, and National CIS policies
- Updates from the Texas Education Agency
- Cindy Stansell, Director of Mental Health Services
- Lakes Regional Child and Adolescent Services and Community HealthCore Mental Health Authorities
- Jessica Harry, CPI Supervisor
Coordinators were provided a catered lunch from community partner, RichBrand Catering, and CIS Board Members.
"It's always exciting when we are able to get together to prepare for a new school year. In recent years we have added even more school districts to our service area and this means we are able to impact even more students," Billi Jo Thomas, Associate Dean of Outreach Services and Executive Director of CIS of Northeast Texas, said.
CIS is a dropout prevention program funded in part by the Texas Legislature and administered by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). CIS works in collaboration with school personnel to develop and provide a comprehensive Integrated Student Support (ISS) program uniquely tailored to address unmet academic and non-academic barriers to students' success. CIS staff complete a thorough campus needs assessment to identify campus needs, gaps in service, available resources, and the goals and priorities of the campus administration. CIS staff use this information to then develop a plan of service to address identified needs. In partnership with community providers, professional CIS staff provide a range of intentionally targeted services that are offered broadly to all students on campus and more intensively to a smaller cohort of "case-managed" students to ensure all students receive the level of support needed to consistently come to school ready to learn and remain on the path to graduation. CIS receives parental permission to monitor student level data and track educational outcomes for all case-managed students served.
Counties served:
- Camp County
- Delta County
- Franklin County
- Hopkins County
- Lamar County
- Morris County
- Rains County
- Red River County
- Titus County
Districts served:
- Chapel Hill ISD
- Clarksville ISD
- Cooper ISD
- Daingerfield Lone Star ISD
- Harts Bluff ISD
- Mount Pleasant ISD
- Mount Vernon ISD
- Paul Pewitt CISD
- Pittsburg ISD
- Prairiland ISD
- Rains ISD
- Rivercrest ISD
- Sulphur Springs ISD
To learn more about CIS of Northeast Texas, visit www.ntcc.edu/cis or contact Thomas at 903-434-8222.
