Celebrating Our Community School Directors & Coordinators
Walk into a community school and you can feel it.
It is in the student who knows exactly where to go when they need someone to talk to. It is in the family who knows there is someone who will help them find a resource, navigate a challenge, or simply listen. It is in the teacher who has a new partner to turn to. It is in the student who discovers a new opportunity, joins a club, plants a garden, gets their first job, or walks across a graduation stage knowing that an entire community is cheering them on.
And behind so many of those moments is a Community School Director or Coordinator.
During Community School Director Week, Counseling In Schools is celebrating the people who make community possible in our schools every day.
Stephanie Abreu, Aminah Abusway, Diniqua Bell, Laurel Boyce, Clara Cabrera, Noel Diaz, Alma Ramales Flores, Patrick Fernbach, Kelly Hernandez-Arriaga, Tracey Lewis, Aaron Novoa, Isabel Pogue, Marion Radu, Ed Roker, Genesy Sencion, Hero Tamakloe, and Kris Williams.
Their work can be difficult to define because it touches nearly every part of school life. They listen. They connect. They organize. They advocate. They build relationships. They bring people to the table. They notice what is missing and look for a way to fill the gap. They help turn a school from a place students attend into a place where students and families feel they belong.
They are, in many ways, the people who help all the pieces come together.
For Genesy Sencion, Community School Director at PS/MS 007, that is exactly what being a CSD means.
“I love being a CSD because I am the glue in my school community who brings everyone in the building together.”
That sense of connection is what keeps Genesy going. She loves watching her school community grow and seeing students become genuinely happy to be part of their environment.
And sometimes, the most meaningful moments are the ones that happen outside the school walls. One of Genesy’s favorite CIS memories was attending a Mental Health Conference in New Orleans with CIS colleagues, learning from people doing similar work around the country and around the world, bringing new ideas and resources home, and creating unforgettable memories with colleagues along the way.
Her own journey with CIS reflects that same spirit of growth and possibility. Genesy joined the organization fresh out of graduate school and found a place that welcomed her, challenged her, and gave her the opportunity to practice social work on both the micro and macro levels.
“This organization welcomed me with open arms, created a space for me to practice social work on both a micro and macro level and has given me the tools I’ve needed to best support the students in every community I’ve served in.”
That is the story of community school work: people supporting people so that they can, in turn, support others.
A reason to show up
For Clara Cabrera, Wholeness Coordinator at PS/MS 007, the work begins with remembering why you are there.
“Start with small steps, get organized, and just do it. Always remember that everything has a reason and a purpose—keep your ‘why’ at the heart of your work.”
Clara’s why is rooted in something that can be easy to overlook amid the day-to-day work of a school: trust.
At the beginning of the school year, students will come looking for her. Some ask to meet with her. Others eagerly request a consent form.
They are small interactions, but they say something enormous.
They trust her.
They value their time together.
And for Clara, those moments are among her favorite CIS memories.
“It reminds me that they trust me and value our time together.”
That trust is not created by a single program or one conversation. It is built over time, through countless interactions, relationships, and moments when a young person learns that the adults around them will show up.
For Clara, that is what makes the work meaningful.
“I love the work I do because it gives me a sense of purpose. It allows me to build community and provide hope and opportunities for students and their families.”
Celebrating the hard moments and the joyful ones
For Patrick Fernbach, Community School Director at Harbor Middle School, community school leadership means being there for the entire journey.
“I love working for Counseling in Schools because I get to make impacts on students lives in so many ways.”
Sometimes that means helping a student through a difficult moment.
Sometimes it means helping a young person get their first job, and then seeing them walk back into school with a new outfit a few days later after receiving their first paycheck.
Sometimes it means watching students cook food from their home countries in Cooking Club.
Or harvesting tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash from a garden they planted themselves.
Or watching a student figure out how to spend the money they worked hard to earn.
And every June, it means watching students walk across the graduation stage.
After eight years with CIS, Patrick has too many favorite memories to choose just one.
Perhaps that is the point.
Community school work is made up of thousands of moments.
Some are big. Some are quiet. Some last a few minutes. Others become memories that stay with students and staff for years.
Patrick’s reason for doing the work comes back to the people at the center of it.
“Everyone will go through hard times in their lives. Hopefully there are compassionate people working with them while they’re going through it.”
And then he adds something just as important:
“I want to help people when they need it, and celebrate them when they succeed.”
That is the full picture.
Not just supporting young people through challenges.
Celebrating them when they thrive.
Bringing the vision of a community school to life
The stories of Genesy, Clara, Patrick, and so many others across CIS show why Community School Directors and Coordinators are so essential.
The Community Schools Essential Framework gives us a shared vision for schools where students, families, educators, and community partners are connected; where student and family voice matters; where resources and opportunities are accessible; and where the school serves as a hub of belonging and possibility.
But a framework only becomes real when people bring it to life.
That is what our Community School Directors and Coordinators do.
They take relationships and turn them into partnerships.
They take needs and turn them into connections.
They take ideas and turn them into opportunities.
They listen to students and families—and help make sure their voices shape the community around them.
They create the conditions for a school to become more than a building.
They help make it a community.
Across Counseling In Schools, that work is happening every day at schools including Heritage High School, PS 124, PS 38, Harbor Middle School, PS/MS 007, Brooklyn Collegiate, PS 288, PS 398, Brooklyn International School, Kurt Hahn Expeditionary High School, PS 47, and IS 238.
It is also happening through our Wholeness Coordinators at A-Tech, PS/MS 007, Boys and Girls High School, and PS 398
Each brings their own experience, personality, creativity, and “why” to the role.
Together, they help make something extraordinary happen:
They make sure students and families do not have to navigate school—or life—alone.
This week, we celebrate you.
To our Community School Directors, Coordinators, and Wholeness Coordinators:
Thank you for being the people who bring others together.
Thank you for creating spaces where students feel safe enough to ask for help, brave enough to try something new, and connected enough to know they belong.
Thank you for the meetings, the phone calls, the partnerships, the problem-solving, the celebrations, the hard conversations, the new ideas, and all of the moments in between.
Thank you for being the glue.
The bridge.
The connector.
The champion.
And sometimes, simply, the person who is there.
Because community does not happen by accident.
It happens because people choose to show up for one another—again and again.
This Community School Director Week, we are celebrating the extraordinary people who do exactly that.
We see you. We appreciate you. And we are so grateful for all that you make possible.
Happy Community School Director Week!
