Dougherty Schools superintendent vows to fight the effects of poverty on students

ALBANY — With the high rate of poverty in Albany and Dougherty County and its impact on the education system, Superintendent Ken Dyer says the system has programs in place to attempt to reach students, especially at the critical stage of grades 1-3.

A recent series on poverty in Albany and its effects showed that, according to 2016 numbers from the U.S. Census, 25,847 of Dougherty County’s citizens (29.8 percent) reside below the federal poverty line, which for an average family of four is a $24,250 in annual income. By comparison, Georgia’s poverty rate is 18.9 percent, and the U.S. rate is 13.5 percent.

What is especially eye-opening, however, is that Dougherty County’s school-age children (ages 5-17) have the county’s highest poverty rate at 41.7 percent. Additionally, more than 45 percent of the county’s population 25 and over has not graduated from high school.

More than 65 percent of the DCSS’s nearly 15,000 students live in families receiving some sort of government assistance.

“Research indicates poverty has an effect on brain development and school success,” Dyer said in the earlier interview. “For these children, poverty contributes to their lack of academic success. They are exposed to fewer words than kids who are not raised in poverty. As they grow up and their brain develops, (conditions of poverty) affect cognitive functions, and it puts them at a disadvantage.

“There is a direct connection between family income and attention, and chronic poverty is also associated with stress, which can be toxic to brain development. Those are the things that children of poverty have to deal with on a daily basis.”

On Friday, Dyer touched on some of the programs the system has put into place to reach students in need in grades one to three.

“We are trying to meet the needs of all of our students and we understand the challenges a student living in poverty faces and that they may need additional support in terms of academics,” Dyer said. “We take that as a challenge and one that we welcome it. We have remediation programs in place at all of our schools. At the early elementary school level we have early intervention programs in reading and math for students who below grade level. we want to get them to level by grade three.

“We also have Saturday schools and other schools have do it every other week. We also have what we call ‘increased learning time’ which we set aside blocks of time during the day for kids who can’t make the Saturday schools.”

Dyer added the system also has after-school programs and small group (four to six students) instruction where remediation efforts also are underway.

According to Dyer, 4,500-5,000 of the District’s nearly 15,00o students are involved in some sort of academic remediation.

“While it’s true we have many students on remediation, but we have seen some progress as far as student growth goes from where they started the year,” Dyer said. “They may not be on grade level, but they continue to make growth. And if they continue to make growth, they will soon be on grade level.

“That’s what we face; that’s the challenge we have. “

Dyer noted the system has some programs specifically aimed at the children of chronic poverty.

“A lot of times those children lack access to adequate healthcare and primary healthcare physicians, so we started the school-based clinics in” Dyer said. “We have one at Turner and Alice Coachman and a third at Albany Middle School. Not only do we provide basic medical care, we also have dental services, and we are going to start vision services very soon.

“When kids are sick they can’t learn, some can’t see the board and those are impediments to learning. Those barriers might not be directly related to academics, but that has an affect on how well they perform in the classroom.”