Graduation Coaches Introduced to GA Grad Stories Blog

GPB Attends Training for Georgia Graduation Coaches

GPB was invited to attend the recent training for Graduation Coaches sponsored by the Georgia Department of Education and Communities in Schools of Georgia. The 600 Coaches and Guidance Counselors from schools in North Georgia had workshop sessions that included topics such as mentoring, attendance intervention, transition from middle to high school and community partners. Training was provided to Coaches and Counselors in South Georgia last month.

Community organizations in attendance at the training gave a presentation to the whole group then provided resource tables for Coaches and Counselors to browse and ask individual questions. The organizations included: Georgia College 411, Gwinnett Technical College, Family Connections, Jr. Achievement and the Latin American Association.

GPB's presentation on the Georgia Graduation Stories blog got a warm reception from Coaches who stopped by the resource table for more information on how to add their stories to this website. They were encouraged to work with their students to add user-generated content, especially student-created multi-media in the form of digital pictures, video or audio clips. Georgia Graduation Stories blog provides a focus on academic struggles and successes as well as those efforts that are designed to impact Georgia's graduation rate.

The High School Graduation Coach initiative was introduced by Governor Sonny Perdue during the 2006 legislative session. The Coach's primary responsibility is to identify at-risk students then help those students succeed in school by keeping them on track academically to prevent the student making the decision to drop out of school. Georgia's High School Graduation Coach program is beginning the 3rd year with the 2008-2009 school year. A Middle School Graduation Coach initiative was created. It is beginning the 2nd year with the 2008-2009 school year. Tom Roman, Graduation Coach Coordinator, Communities of Schools in Georgia, says that the news of the success of the Graduation Coach programs has spread so far that he is getting requests for information on the program from all over the country.