SARANAC LAKE — Erica Bezio brought a rotary phone to the Saranac Lake school board’s meeting last month to illustrate her role as the district’s Community Schools liaison.

The old, bulky phone did one thing — make calls. Similarly, schools used to just offer education.

Bezio pulled out a smartphone. Now, she said, phones have many functions — they’re cameras, entertainment, tools and “lifelines.” Similarly, she added, schools now are responsible for children’s nutrition, physical education, physical and mental well-being and entertainment.

The Community Schools program’s goal, she said, is to ensure that the district’s children have the best home life possible, which means they’re more likely to be successful in school.

Four years into the district’s Community Schools effort, the program is expanding, and educational leaders say they’re proud of what the district provides for students and their families. The district is hiring a second Community Schools coordinator.

School board member Joe Henderson described Community Schools as a “reaction to broader social and political failures.”

By the numbers

SLCSD Superintendent Diane Fox said the program costs under $100,000 a year, between funding from taxpayers and grants. But there’s also lots of donors and volunteers who are willing to offer help through the district, even at a financial loss.

The results are hard to measure quantitatively because often, the program is preventing hardships before they happen. But Fox said the qualitative results from the Community Schools program are tangible.

She fought tears as she talked about a student whose family was able to keep their house because the district helped them make rent when they were threatened with eviction.

Bezio loves seeing the “Red Storm” water bottles they hand out around town.

Since 2018, Fox said the district has sent students home for the weekend with backpacks full of food 8,000 times. This grant-funded effort cost $50,600. Fox said the number of students getting these backpacks rose from 40 to 80 this year.

Bezio said with a grant, the district was able to pay 36 families’ internet bills during the coronavirus pandemic, offering up to $110 per month to help students attend online classes. This service is still available, she said, but some families live where there’s no internet available at all.

School board members say they are proud they’re able to support their neighbors.

The program and its community liaison, Bezio, are funded through local school taxes. SLCSD board member Jeremy Evans said he’s grateful the community supports this program, adding that taxpayers elsewhere might not approve it.

“Our return on investment over the years has been great,” Fox said. “If you were playing the stock market and you got the same return on investment that we are getting … you would be very pleased.”

“I like to think I make money,” Bezio said.

She’s a lightning rod for hearing about student needs, and a conduit for money and services to help them.

At its October meeting, the board approved the hiring of Kathleen Kmen as a Community School coordinator with a prorated $47,196 salary. Kmen will focus on implementing Diversity Equity and Inclusion policies and working with Bezio.

Creation

SLCSD board President Aurora White said it might not always be obvious, but “we have struggling families.”

Bezio said she hears about needs every day, sometimes several times a day. Some of these requests are “significant.” Children do not have enough to eat at home, family members are ill and don’t have health insurance, students and their families deal with addiction, parents face evictions, some lack internet access, transportation or basic essentials.

All these hardships make getting an education harder, and Bezio said it’s the district’s job to remove these barriers. When families aren’t able to get the aid they need from the local, state or federal government, the school picks up the slack.

The district can help families pay rent or internet bills, get them signed up for health or unemployment insurance, give them rides to agencies, and directly provide them with food and financial support.

SLCSD’s Community Schools program is the only one in the Tri-Lakes area. The next closest one is in Massena.

“Everybody needs a community school,” Bezio said.

She said she finds the work “incredibly rewarding.”

School board member Nancy Bernstein worries there may still be people who could use Community School resources but don’t think they qualify.

Bezio said anyone can use Community School services, regardless of their socioeconomic status. There are no requirements to get help, she said.

Fox said the Community Schools program was created through a partnership with New York State United Teachers in an effort to bring services close to home. Saranac Lake is a one-hour drive from the Franklin, Essex and St. Lawrence county offices.

“There were very few services here in our neck of the woods,” Fox said.

But the district has the influence needed to draw these services in.

Bezio connects the school with a lot of regional agencies.

The Joint Council for Economic Opportunity embedded a staff member in the district to run a food pantry.

The YMCA of Malone offers child care before and after school and over summers, and takes all students, regardless of their family’s ability to pay.

Citizen Advocates has embedded a clinician for students to seek mental health help from during the day.

Community Connections of Franklin County embedded a family advocate in the district building who can help families get health insurance, file for unemployment or provide rides to county offices.

The district is planning to start a partnership with Adirondack Health in January, which would allow students to be seen by local pediatricians in telehealth sessions in the school nurse’s office.

Next, Fox said she’d like the district to become a “clearinghouse” for youth activities, an information hub for people looking to get their kids into sports, groups and activities.

Needs

Fox said as the community population shrinks, so does the middle class.

“Our middle-income jobs are leaving our community and they’re not being replaced,” Fox told the board recently.

Every year, the district reports job numbers from top local employers to the state. Fox said in 2012, the area’s top five employers — Adirondack Medical Center, American Management Association, Trudeau Institute, Paul Smith’s College and North Country Community College — employed a collective 1,895 people.

By last year, that number shrunk to 1,220, a loss of 675 jobs — 30% of the workforce, Fox said.

These numbers do not include correctional facilities, but Fox added that between 2018 and 2020, local prisons also had a 30% reduction in staff.

As jobs dry up, needs rise, Fox said.

Over 50% of students at Petrova Elementary School qualify for free and reduced lunches, Fox said. That’s up from 31% a decade ago.

Fox said the program’s target group are ALICE families. ALICE — or Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — are people who live and work above the poverty line, but are “one big bill away from a financial crisis,” as Fox put it.

“These are families that live in constant financial stress,” she said.

They can’t afford the “extra things,” or things that for others might seem typical.

Bezio said there are a lot of people in this situation in Franklin County.

According to the United Way of Northern New York’s 2020 ALICE report, 18% of the county’s residents live under the federal poverty level and one quarter of its residents live under the ALICE line. This is higher in Harrietstown, where 41% of residents live below ALICE.

Bezio said Franklin County has the highest rate by population of Child Protective Services calls for neglect and abuse of all counties in the state.

In Essex County, 10% of residents live under the federal poverty level but 28% live under the ALICE line. Thirty-four percent of North Elba residents live below ALICE.