West End School Gives Students Hope For The Future

Atlanta, GA. On December 11th, six students from Communities In Schools (CIS) of Atlanta partner schools made presentations for the 2006 Student Achievement Month competition. This annual contest provides students served by CIS of Atlanta with an opportunity to share what the program has meant to them. Student projects are judged at local, regional and state levels, with top winners receiving a prize package that includes a new computer. Denise Cook, a student at CIS of Atlanta’s West End Performance Learning Center explained her poster-sized drawing to the audience saying, “This poster represents the past, present and future for me. Before CIS, my life was like death. Everything around me was dead. The CIS staff have been my heroes. Now, I have a future and I know that I’m going to make it.”

Last May, Denise gave up on any hopes of a successful future when she dropped out of Grady High School.  Just a few weeks before the school’s graduation ceremony, she found herself short on academic credits, unable to pay her senior dues and homeless. Denise’s mother’s had substance abuse problems that resulted in a long period of unemployment and the eventual loss of the pairs’ apartment. What should have been a happy time for Denise became a time of loss, instability and uncertainty.

While Denise’s mother entered a shelter, Denise opted to live on the streets. “I was out by myself. Sometimes I stayed with friends, but I was never in the same place for long,” said the Atlanta teen.

After months on the streets, Denise decided to enter the shelter with her mother. “I got tired of not doing anything. I wanted to get help so I could go back to school. I knew that going to school was the only chance I had to get where I wanted to get in life,” Denise said with quiet determination. With assistance from counselors in the shelter, Denise entered the West End Performance Learning Center (PLC) in August.

The West End PLC has operated as a partnership between Atlanta Public Schools and Communities In Schools of Atlanta since 1972, and has been housed at 1325 Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard in the West End community since 1984. This nontraditional school helps children who have dropped out or who are at risk for dropping out earn their high school diplomas.

Four months after entering the West End Performance Learning Center, Denise is just one semester away from graduating. When asked about her plans for the future, the soft spoken 19-year smiled saying, “I’m going to Georgia Perimeter for 2 years, then transferring to Florida A&M University. I want to study journalism because I love to write.”

For more information on Communities In Schools of Atlanta or the West End Performance Learning Center, please visit www.cisatlanta.org