1 in 4 students in DC’s public schools live in poverty.

That means thousands of kids are carrying adult-sized burdens to school every day: unmet basic needs, homelessness, bullying, systemic racism, the emotional effects of trauma, untreated medical issues, language barriers, learning disabilities and more.

Our community has many resources to address these challenges, but students and families may have a hard time accessing and navigating the maze of public and private services, while balancing and keeping pace at school.

We're all in for kids.

We believe greatness exists in every child. Communities in Schools of the Nation’s Capital is dedicated to empowering students to stay in school and activate their potential.

Working directly inside 10 of District of Columbia’s Public Schools (DCPS), our full-time site coordinators connect students to community resources designed to help them succeed.

Learning disabilities. Homelessness. Bullying. The emotional effects of trauma. Untreated medical or dental conditions. A lack of school supplies and clothes. We’re in schools to spot the roadblocks in our students’ way.

Our Site Coordinators

Our Site Coordinators look at the needs of their schools, families and individual students. They work with school staff to identify students most at risk of dropping out and work directly with those students, sometimes over several years. Site Coordinators establish relationships with local businesses, social service agencies, health care providers and volunteers to provide schoolwide programming like college fairs, health screenings and study groups.

Our Site Coordinators are hubs: a central point of contact for administrators, teachers, parents, and students and create partnerships to bring all the resources of our community into the school. And DCPS has invested in this model, working closely with CISNCAP to develop the District’s “Connected Schools” initiative, which launched in 2019.

This year, we’ve worked with over 4,000 students and families to remove roadblocks to their academic and personal success. Our team individually case-managed just under 10 percent of those students who are most in need of extra support to stay in school and get to graduation.