Knox Promise Neighborhood: Attend Today – Achieve Tomorrow

Introduction

Natural beauty abounds in Knox County, Kentucky.
Photo credits: Cumberland River Basin, Barboursville Tourism

Knox County is a vibrant community in southern Kentucky, surrounded by sprawling forests at the foothills of Appalachia and a rich cultural history that unites its residents. The county was established over two centuries ago and has developed a local economy that features industries such as health care, education, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction. Government and health care represent the county's largest industries and its residents' most reliable sources of income in the face of economic challenges.

Knox also supports a unique creative economy through events such as the Redbud Festival where local crafters, creators, and entrepreneurs can showcase their goods and talents. On top of their devotion to local and creative economies, Knox County invests fiercely in educators to ensure that students' needs are being met at every level from cradle-to-career.

A Neighborhood of Promise

Promise Neighborhoods established in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Education is a systemic effort to improve economic stability in communities like Knox County by investing in the well-being of children. Promise Neighborhoods projects aim to foster a cradle-to-career network of robust, comprehensive local support programs for children and their families, with great schools at the center.

In Knox County, poverty levels are high, and educational attainment and income struggles to meet the needs of its residents. The inflation-adjusted median household income reported by Knox County residents in 2018 through 2022 was $34,254, dipping well below the national median income of $74,580. The Promise Neighborhoods program was designed to address and prioritize needs in communities struggling to allocate sufficient resources to schools.

High School students participate in an attendance awareness event.
Photo credit: Partners for Rural Impact

Knox County neighbor, Berea College, has always been a pioneer in developing innovative and radical approaches to combating rural poverty, particularly in Appalachia. The first integrated, co-educational college in the south, it has been tuition free since its founding in 1892. Most Berea College students come from Kentucky and Appalachia, with a significant number from economically distressed and at-risk counties. The college aspires that many graduates will "continue to reside in Kentucky and Appalachia to make our region an even better place to live and work." This commitment to improving the well-being of people living and working in rural Kentucky prompted Berea College to apply for its first Promise Neighborhood implementation grant in 2011, which covered three rural counties in Kentucky: Clay, Jackson, and Owsley. In 2016, the college applied for and was selected to expand these efforts to Knox County.

The county takes pride in its rich history and connects meaningfully with its past and present while investing in its future. Knox County continues to experience and tackle barriers resulting from economic challenges and relies on the power of its community to unite and uplift one another. The Promise Neighborhoods grant project has provided one avenue to do so, highlighting one of Knox County's most inspiring assets—the effort and energy put toward creating effective and sustainable pathways for the next generation.

Understanding the Challenges

Standing as a cornerstone in Knox County, the schools strive to provide the structure, consistency, and support each student and family needs to thrive. In preparation for Knox Promise Neighborhood's critical work, key challenges undermining this stability were identified for intervention. Attendance data from the 2015-2016 school year highlighted that 1,300+ students had missed 15 or more days of school. Thirty-one percent of Knox County's student population, or nearly 1 in 3 students, were classified as chronically absent, nearly double the national average of 16 percent, or about 1 in 6 U.S. students.

When students consistently attend school, especially in middle school, it supports their learning and success. The habits students form in middle school set a path for high school – when students attend school regularly, it sticks. In contrast, chronically absent students may continue that trend, leading to involvement in a punitive truancy system or dropping out of high school altogether.

At the grant's outset (2016), Sandy Frederick was a school coordinator at Knox Middle School, witnessing students who struggled to attend school each day, and a school with limited resources to address the problem. For some students, Sandy says "it was unreal the amount of time they had missed." Others who were able to make it to school also missed important class time due to tardiness. Frederick did what she could with what she had and would eagerly try "to hold the door open" for students rushing in to get to class on time.

Attend Today – Achieve Tomorrow

Having identified a significant barrier to students' academic progress, the Knox Promise Neighborhood team designed and implemented a campaign targeting absenteeism: Attend Today – Achieve Tomorrow. A foundational step to growing student achievement is ensuring they can access educational opportunities. As such, focusing on student attendance promised to be a high-leverage strategy. Knox Promise Neighborhood staff conducted focus groups and surveys with 6th through 12th graders to identify factors contributing to absenteeism. These factors ranged from parent or child illness to unreliable transportation, from stress, depression, or anxiety to lack of connection with the school or teachers. In an attempt to address such challenges, Knox Promise Neighborhood began by looking to Attendance Works for inspiration and materials and completing the Results Count program to learn about tools and strategies and gain skills necessary to maximize the program's impact.

Building Strong Connections

Educators and other school staff play a formative role in students' lives, and for many students, it's the support and consistency from teachers that creates a lasting impact. Knox Promise Neighborhood hired two types of school-based staff – academic interventionists and school coordinators – to help provide this sort of support and consistency.

Each academic interventionist worked with 30 – 40 students as a case manager and a point of contact with families. These professionals prioritized building solid connections with students and parents, focusing primarily on providing academic support. They would contact parents to share positive stories from the children's school days to foster open communication and positive rapport.

School coordinators, not bound by caseload restrictions, served all students in the school. They focused on providing nonacademic enrichment and ensuring that all students were safe, healthy, and supported. Kelli Moore, Knox Promise Neighborhood's original project director, called school coordinators the "backbone of the Promise Neighborhood campaign." One former school coordinator, Sandy Frederick, recently witnessed the power of the role when she ran into a former student at a local restaurant.

Hey, We Are Here

Sandy Frederick outside Knox County Middle School.
Photo Credit: Sandy Frederick

As part of Knox Middle School's initiatives, Sandy Frederick joined a team of 10-15 school staff – including the guidance counselor, safety officer, principal, and assistant principal – to greet every student that walked through the door each morning. Frederick shared "I got to know them all better that way… and to the ones that would miss [school], I could say, 'it's so great to see you here today! I hope you have a good day!'" Over time, Sandy witnessed the impact of simply acknowledging students' presence. "I would end up seeing them coming back more regularly. I think that really helped some of them come back, simply because I was like, 'hey, we are here'."

Building School Community

Individual school campuses implemented activities to build positive school culture and encourage students to be present and active in school. Some schools launched Student Leadership Teams to emphasize active engagement and enhance student voice. These teams specifically recruited students from the target population to participate with peers from a variety of grade levels, providing means for students to invest energy into their school community. Other campuses rewarded high attendance with exciting and fun activities, such as throwing water balloons at the Assistant Principal or participating in a Powder Puff football game.

Students from Corbin Primary School and Knox Central High School participate in activities to celebrate high attendance
Photo credit: Knox Promise Neighborhood Facebook page

Attend Today – Achieve Tomorrow's impact resonates vividly through the story of Corbin High School. Its Promise Neighborhood staff recruited students who had been chronically absent in 8th grade to participate in a focus group discussion at the beginning of their 9th-grade year. These students not only connected instantly but were driven to establish their own community-focused club, backed by the school coordinator.  By the end of that year, not a single one of those previously chronically absent students faced the same issue in 9th grade. Kelli Moore, Knox Promise Neighborhood's Project Director at the time, claims " we just made them feel seen and heard, and they found a place where they belonged."

A Community Effort

The success of Attend Today – Achieve Tomorrow depended on drawing from the diverse resources of the surrounding community. Focused on creating wrap-around supports, Amy Floyd emphasized "responsibility for improving these issues were not held solely with one group. Since the community at large would benefit from improvement in attendance, partnerships were cultivated with two local Chambers of Commerce to initiate campaigns targeting the [contributing factors]."

Knox Promise Neighborhood and Chamber of Commerce staff award Corbin High School student, Cameron Bowling, 4 movie tickets donated by the Tri-County Cineplex for best attendance
Photo credit: Knox Promise Neighborhood Facebook page

Knox Promise Neighborhood coordinated with the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and Knox County Chamber of Commerce to publicly recognize students, families, and schools' attendance efforts. At monthly meetings, the school with the highest average daily attendance was recognized with an award, and students who missed one or fewer days of school were entered into a drawing for free movie tickets. School principals attended to support the families and educators' successes, while local media coverage distributed the acknowledgement to an even broader community audience.

Kentucky's Division of Family Resource and Youth Services Centers (FRYSC) was another important community partner. FRYSC staff conducted outreach with visits to chronic absentees' homes and helping students and families overcome obstacles that might make it difficult for students to attend school. The network of support created within the Knox community measurably affected the improvement of student attendance, and subsequently their learning.

Making Progress

By the end of Knox Promise Neighborhood's third year (2019), the Attend Today – Achieve Tomorrow campaign was making a great impact on attendance. Average daily attendance among students in grades 6 through 9 was nearly 90 percent, and chronic absenteeism had taken a dramatic drop to 13 percent.

Source: Email communication with Amy Floyd, current Knox Promise Neighborhood Project Director

Amy Floyd credits this progress, in part, to the "development of relationships between our staff and the parents, and a consistent line of communication – the parents were more aware of what was going on and that there was someone there to help them and that there was someone there that would notice that their student was not present."

And then, along with the rest of the world, Knox Promise Neighborhood hit a roadblock. In March 2020, the spread of COVID-19 resulted in widespread closures of not just schools, but of communities as a whole. Health and safety became parents' and educators' primary concern, with attendance taking a back seat. Classes went completely virtual for a significant amount of time, and as a result schools lost contact with many of the students and parents, they had worked so hard to reach over the prior 3 years. As was the case among schools nationwide, average daily attendance plummeted, and chronic absenteeism increased.

In times of recovery, maintaining the progress made in education becomes crucial.  The Knox Promise Neighborhood team swiftly adapted, transitioning to digital and hybrid learning services to ensure ongoing student engagement. For example, they created educational packets allowing students to safely collect materials from the school and collaborate online with peers. Knox Promise Neighborhood also began offering evening family programs. One positive outcome was increased family involvement relative to pre-pandemic times, particularly with respect to fathers.

Tomorrow's Knox

Knox County remains dedicated to supporting schools and students after the COVID-19 pandemic. The Knox Promise Neighborhood's focus on building capacity within schools and the wider community reflects a long-term commitment to sustain positive changes and foster continued growth. As families, schools, organizations, and the communities of Knox County strengthen the support network for today's students, these attendance initiatives will support Knox County now and in the future. Today, Partners for Rural Impact (formerly Partners for Education at Berea College) has contracted with Attendance Works to continue addressing attendance challenges in Knox County and 12 neighboring districts across eastern Kentucky.

Sandy Frederick's encounter at that local restaurant with a student she had previously shown kindness to shows the lasting impact that even small acts of support, like holding open a school door, can have. She attentively listened as he enthusiastically shared his plans to attend Eastern Kentucky University. Their simple story serves as an inspiring reminder of the positive influence that community support and initiatives like Promise Neighborhoods have on shaping the aspirations and futures of individuals within communities. Knox Promise Neighborhood continues to be a beacon of hope, reminding us of the transformative impact we can have on others through our collective efforts and unwavering support.

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