Chuck Licis-Masson, Program Coordinator for Take Stock in Children and the Executive Director of the Monroe County Education Foundation, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the program.
Graduation is really just around the corner.
Licis-Masson said, “Our graduation ceremony for Take Stock in Children is Saturday May 17, and it’s at 11 o’clock at Marathon High School and we are celebrating our 25th graduating class. We have 80 graduates, 80 Take Stock students graduating this year from the high schools from Coral Shores, Marathon, Key West and Somerset Island Prep, and it is a high benchmark number. Normally, we’re at about between 55 and 65 students. Last year we had 62 students, and now we’re up to 80. So we continue to grow and serve many, many deserving kids in the community.”
What does Take Stock in Children do for the students?
Licis-Masson said, “These 80 kids are well deserving kids. They came into the program in grades six through 10, years ago. They had to meet income eligibility requirements, so their family household income couldn’t exceed threshold number based on their household size, and it varies from how many are in your household from two to eight, and so they meet those income qualifications. We also then look at the student’s academic background and make sure that they have a minimum of a 2.0 grade point average, that they are excelling in their classes, earning A’s, B’s and C’s. They have good attendance and good behavior, and they’re just all around great kids in that respect, and if they meet all those requirements and the income household requirement as well, which we investigate and I talk to the parents to make sure that they are eligible. We bring them into the program, and they sign a contract, which is basically a promise to maintain their grades, attendance and behavior, and a promise to meet with a volunteer mentor every week during the school year for about 30 minutes, 30 to 45 minutes. This volunteer mentor is not a tutor, the volunteer mentor is not an Uber driver or an ATM, but an adult from the community who has great listening skills and wants to be around kids and help guide kids and help them learn self advocacy skills and find solutions to challenges. Talk about the future, talk about what the student may want to be doing after high school, what the student is passionate about, and really help guide that student towards those goals, through goal setting and help guide them. So the magic of the program is through the mentors. The income requirements, the reason why we have to abide by those is because the Monroe County Education Foundation, we are the fundraising arm, if you will, of our Take Stock program here in Monroe County and when we raise funds to purchase Florida Prepaid scholarships, every dollar we raise is matched by Florida Prepaid by the state of Florida, so it’s publicly subsidized 50% so we have these requirements that a family can’t earn more than X number of dollars when the child comes into the program in order to have access to one of those scholarships that we purchase. So that’s the reason why we have the low income stipulation on those.”
Funding scholarships for 80 students is remarkable.
Licis-Masson said, “You take 80 kids and you multiply that out by about $20,000 to $25,000 per student, you’re talking a good chunk of change that we’ve fundraised for scholarships for these kids to go away to schools, and about two thirds of our students will go directly to university. They will have access also to a two year dormitory plan, which helps offset the living costs for the student for the first four semesters, for the first two years, their freshman and sophomore year, so they can focus on their academics and be on campus and be a part of campus life, wherever they may be, at one of the 12 great state universities here in Florida. Then about a third of our students will go to a state college. We have 28 state colleges, one here located in the Florida Keys, the College of the Florida Keys, and they start with an associates and work their way up to a bachelor’s degree with the two plus two scholarship that they receive from Take Stock in Children.”
How many of the students, what percentage of them, complete the program and move on to upper education through Take Stock?
Licis-Masson said, “If you come in in sixth grade, we tend to lose probably about five students a year on average based on a variety of factors. The student may have low grades and doing poorly so they’re not meeting the obligations of the promise or the contract, and we go through a probation period, so we have a warning status, and then the next quarter they go to probation one, the next quarter, they go to probation two, much like baseball, they have three strikes, three opportunities to improve before they’re removed from the program. So that is one of the one of the ways a student can work him or herself out of the program. Sometimes they move out of state, so they have to leave Florida, and they lose their opportunity if they leave Florida, or they self elect to drop out of the program for a variety of reasons. We can go down the rabbit hole of mental health and students, we do our best to help our kids and point them in the right direction for help. But occasionally we’ll have a student who is a little bit overwhelmed and needs to focus solely on academics and not have all of the other things involved with Take Stock. But I would say good 96%, 98% of our students who enter the program will complete the program, and then 100% of those students when they graduate high school, they will enroll in a university or college program, or they’ll go into the armed forces. We’ve had students go into the Coast Guard and marines, etc. and they can defer their scholarship for several years and then use it at a later date.”
Take Stock really does have all of the support systems in place to make sure that success is achieved.
Licis-Masson confirmed, “Every year you hear the district talking about their graduation rate, and we try to get that as high as possible, and we play a pivotal role in improving the district’s graduation rate, not only with the Take Stock in Children students, 365 students I currently have in the program throughout the county who will graduate high school, but also then their peers. They work with their peers and there’s the ripple effect of our program, of those who are not in our program, who still benefit from the services that we provide. Our coaches are available to all students. You don’t have to be a Take Stock student to drop into a coach’s office at one of the schools, and they’ll be glad to help any student so they reinforce what the counselors are doing, what the teachers are doing in schools to help our students overall succeed throughout the district.”
Mentors are critical for the Take Stock program.
Licis-Masson said, “This is probably our greatest challenge here in the community, is finding those volunteer mentors, because we are all so very busy and doing multiple things, and it’s very difficult to find someone to carve out 30 minutes a week to meet with a student, in the Lower Keys, especially, we’re still behind. We have students who are waiting to come into the program in the Lower Keys, but we just are still tracking down those mentors so we can bring them into the program. We cannot bring a student to the program unless we have a mentor for that student. In the Middle and Upper Keys, we’re doing okay, but again, if you’re listening, it is only 30 minutes a week during the school day, during the school year. So you don’t meet during the summers, you don’t meet during school holidays. For me, I’m a mentor myself, and I have a student, a ninth grade student at Key West High School. It is that moment I can get away from work, if you will, even though I’m still working as mentor, as a coordinator and mentoring a student, but we talk about a variety of different things. In fact, he was astounded that I still have cable, and I was expressing my frustration with a certain cable company here in the Keys and he looked at me so quizzically. He says, what? He didn’t understand, and he thought I was 150 years old. So he taught me that you really should be streaming and not use cable.”
Fundraising is also a big part of Take Stock in Children.
Licis-Masson said, “We welcome all contributions. I cannot say enough about our local Rotary clubs throughout Monroe County. On the 17th, the evening of our graduation, is Casino Night for the Key West Rotary, and that is a fundraiser for Take Stock in Children and the Key West Rotary, the noon club, they contribute $25,000. They’re a named scholar donor, as well as the marathon Rotary. Upper Keys Rotary contributes $50,000. They have a double named scholar. Key Largo Rotary, all the different rotary clubs throughout the county, they support our program, and a lot of organizations. Ocean Reef is phenomenal as well. I’m heading up there this morning for a presentation for the Ocean Reef Community Foundation through Keys Children’s Foundation actually, is the board I’m going to present to. But even individuals, and it doesn’t have to be $25,000. It could be $250, it could be $2,500 or any other amount. It all goes towards our Florida Prepaid Scholarship Fund, and it is matched by the state, and it allows us to purchase those needed scholarships for our students who come into the program, as well as dormitory plans. Because housing is getting more and more expensive. It’s more expensive than tuition. Tuition has remained flat for the past 10 to 15 years, but the dormitory plans are game changers for our kids, because they allow our students to leave the Keys and have housing on a college campus and start their college career at one of the 12 state universities.”
For more information, click here: https://monroecountyedfound.com/about-take-stock