Reality Check:
Preparing for Life Beyond School Through Strong Community Partnerships

In my professional role, I enjoy working with parents and caregivers within and outside of schools. Recently, a parent completed the Parent Leadership Partner (PLP) Program through the Carolina Family Engagement Center (CFEC). This year-long program, followed by a certificate of completion and graduation ceremony, allowed 15 parents to meet monthly to complete coursework designed to help parents better navigate the public education system. The program allows them to see themselves as advocates and leaders through the process. This particular parent, Randall Lowder, was empowered to become the chair of the School Improvement Council at his son’s junior high school and initiated the following call to action for a “reality check” event at his son’s middle school.

There’s education, and then there’s education. Randall Lowder was concerned about the education required for handling life in the real world beyond book reports and lab experiments. How could his son and other students learn about money management, paying for housing, budgeting for medical bills, car insurance, and future family needs?

Those lessons weren’t taught at Manning Junior High School, where Lowder was chair of the School Improvement Council (SIC). Lowder, a single parent, discussed his worries with me. As part of my CFEC Family Engagement Liaison job, I attended SIC meetings during CFEC’s four-year partnership with Manning Junior High. Often, CFEC liaisons help schools in important ways beyond academics and other school goals. As a fellow single parent, I understood his concerns.

So was born the Reality Check Expo, an event that supported the school’s 180 eighth graders to start thinking about their futures in practical terms. Another unexpected benefit: firmer ties to the community, thanks to the participation of local businesses.

“Parent and community involvement has always been a struggle with students at this age level,” Principal Terrie T. Ard shared. “The Reality Check Expo allows our school to work with parents and community stakeholders, such as the chamber of commerce, to help host such an event for our students.”

At the expo, students visited various booths in the school gym to learn about money management. Based on their career interests and hypothetical future family size, each student visited different experts to see what income they needed to pay for their ideal way of living. Housing, insurance, utilities, groceries, entertainment, clothing, medical, and childcare experts guided them at individual booths. Outside, different booths were set up for students to get a sense of various vehicle costs and other means of transportation. The last booth was a bank booth, where a banker tallied each student’s financial status and guided them through applying for a loan if they needed more money. Students also met with individual teachers to discuss job and career options and post-secondary education requirements based on their interests.

The pilot Reality Check Expo was so successful that future expos were planned to include students in sixth and seventh grades. Expo planners based this event on a successful program model in Yukon Public Schools in Oklahoma, which started its Reality Check event in 2002. Lowder learned about the program through social media and contacted the school for information. Educators shared their materials with the Manning Junior High SIC and other schools nationwide.

As a Columbia resident and non-member but regular attendee of the Manning Junior High SIC, I served as a helpful observer rather than an emotionally involved participant. This neutral role allowed me to smooth tensions between two members of the SIC. When one party approached me asking for advice about how to diffuse the situation, I could respond in a way that mediated the situation. I kept a calm spirit and did more listening than talking to identify issues and propose solutions. I advised how to handle the problem, and both voices were heard.

The tension abated, and the Reality Check Expo moved from idea to reality. Principal Ard appreciated the outcome, recalling, “Our CFEC liaison has been a tremendous asset to our school. Having someone to bridge the divide of parent and school relations has been a positive experience.”

I believe in schools keeping open communication with the community they serve. Often, CFEC liaisons help schools in important ways beyond academics and other school goals. My work as a CFEC liaison at Manning Junior High School to find resources to support schools and families paid off: five book vending machines and three CFEC Community Family Resource Centers (CFRCs) were placed in Clarendon County. CFRCs are high-quality stations providing free community and school materials and information, some translated into Spanish.

Ard, who notes her school’s 2022 “excellent” rating in the South Carolina Department of Education report card, affirms MJHS’s positive experience with CFEC. “The entire process has been great,” she says. “I feel our family-school-community engagement grew stronger every year of the partnership. With Ms. Outing’s help, I feel the line of communication with parents, community, and school has strengthened.”

There is this notion that many parents don’t care or believe it is entirely up to educators to ensure their children are prepared for life beyond school. Often, barriers such as work, transportation, homelessness, hunger, abusive relationships, negative past experiences, and lack of knowledge are overlooked. Over the past several years working as a CFEC Family Engagement Liaison in the SC Pee Dee region, I’ve had the opportunity to see otherwise.

What began as one parent’s idea, inspired by a different school district’s implementation in another part of the country, ended with much more than anyone could have hoped. This collaboration among community partners and middle school educators, parents, and students offers encouragement and a powerful model for other schools to follow.