Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicole Bush.
Nicole, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I guess my story starts with my passion for education. From a young age, education was always very important to me. I was definitely the kid who was super excited for the first day of school and hated to see summer come because it meant no school for two months. With this love for education, it was easy to see that my ideal job would be a teacher… WRONG, I wanted nothing to do with teaching or education. No matter how many of my teachers told me you would make a great teacher one day, my dream job was to be a lawyer and if that fell through a historian, but everything changed when I went to college.
College was the first time in my life I’d been placed in a situation where I realized just how privileged I was to have the education I received in grade school. It was mind-boggling to me to know that we all had to meet the same requirements to get into this school but, yet we were all at such different starting places. This was the first time I was introduced to educational inequity and in that very moment, I made a decision to fight for equality wherever I saw darkness.
After graduation, I started looking for ways just to simply give back to young girls who looked like me and did not have that supportive role model in their life. This led me to B’Fly Girls Inc., a girl mentoring program whose mission is ” To Change the lives of girls while providing positive and successful experiences”. Looking back on it now I know becoming a mentor with B’Fly Girls was nothing but God putting me in position for what he’d called me to do.
It’s funny how God works things out I had been running from a career in education since the day my sixth-grade teacher uttered “you’d make a great teacher one day”, now somehow I was walking into a school every week mentoring a group of middle school girls. This was not the path I’d planned for myself but thankfully God’s a better planner than me.
During my time as a mentor with B’Fly Girls I was introduced to a nonprofit organization called Communities In Schools of Atlanta, little did I know this organization would play such a big role in my journey.
My journey with Communities In Schools of Atlanta ( CIS) started as an AmeriCorps Member, supporting their literacy and retention initiative at Paul D. West Middle School. For a year I worked with sixth and seventh grade students helping improve their reading, comprehension and retention skills. That year could only be described as challenging, but that year laid the foundation for the work I’m currently doing.
At the time I didn’t know why I loved working with those kids so much, especially for the girl who was looking for any way out, but instead I found myself becoming more and more intrigued by the world of education. As I completed my AmeriCorps year, I left filling so inspired that I’d turn on the light inside of those students. The work I’d done in that year wasn’t just inspiring it was rewarding, to see a student who at the beginning of the year did not believe in themselves end the year with not just more confidence and improvement in their reading skills, but a belief in their endless possibilities.
That feeling of seeing the light switch turn on for a student that’s the secret sauce, that’s what made me realize this was no longer work but a passion.
This passion led me to my current role as a Site Coordinator with Communities In Schools of Atlanta. Over the past three years I’ve had the pleasure of growing, and learning with my students, overcoming adversity, breaking generational curses, and building the next generation of thought leaders and change makers who will leave marks that cannot be erased.
The work I’ve done so far is only the beginning, my focus now is shifting towards educational policy and the changes that must be made to provide and equal and just education for all students in this country. Because in order for us all to have an opportunity to play in the game, we must first be equipped with the tools necessary to execute.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Ha Ha, has it been a smooth road No … would I change anything absolutely not! My journey is my journey and I’m proud of it but more importantly, it’s still being written!
Every roadblock, and, no, and not yet and, you need more experience, prepared me for the day when someone said yes.
I remember standing in my bathroom mirror crying one day literally asking God to just allow one person to see the potential in me and when the opportunity comes I promised to run with it and never look back.
That was over six years ago, and since then I’ve worked hard, gone the extra mile, stayed up late, and woke up early, not because I was scared of losing what I prayed for, but because I could never complain about a full plate when my goal was to eat.
One thing I’ve learned to embrace in my journey is being uncomfortable because growth never happens from a comfort zone.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Communities In Schools of Atlanta story. Tell us more about the business.
Communities In Schools of Atlanta is an award-winning dropout prevention organization that was established in Atlanta, Georgia in 1972, whose mission is ” to surround kids with a community of support empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life”.
CIS Atlanta supports students in four school districts across the Metro Atlanta area: Atlanta Public Schools, Clayton County Schools, Dekalb County Schools, and Fulton County Schools. By placing Site Coordinators in schools to provide wrap-around support services to remove the burdens that keep students from coming to school.
Communities In Schools of Atlanta is so much more than a drop out prevention program, its an organization that this city should know and embrace and fight to have in every school; because the work that we are doing is changing the trajectories of our students, their families and the community.
The work being done at CIS Atlanta is not just focused on students getting promoted or graduating or improving standardized test scores. It is work focused on changing lives and building better and brighter futures for the next generation.
The work myself and my colleagues do every day can only be described as ” heart work”.
In my role as a Site Coordinator at Carver Steam High School and Carver Early College, I work with students grades 9th – 12th on not just making sure they are coming to school on time, turning in homework and studying for test, or completing college applications and FASFA’s; but making sure they have their basic needs met. Such as clothing, food, hot water, housing, and making sure their parents are gainfully employed. We also take great pride in providing exposure for our students, from college visits to job shadowing , to trips to the New York Stock Exchange, and visits to the Nation’s Capital. We believe in exposing our students too as much as possible because they need to see themselves in these settings, so they know it’s possible.
This will be my fourth year with Communities In Schools of Atlanta and each year I’m amazed at how many students stay in school, graduate, or improve in their core classes because of the work we do on a day to day bases. Communities In Schools of Atlanta is unlike any other organization because we support our students and families 365 days a year 24 hours a day. We are here for students and families before school, after school on weekends, during holidays and summer break, we really are an organization that’s all in for kids!
I believe the work that we do every day is building the next generation of leaders, movers and change makers, and it’s truly an honor to be a part of something that’s having such a positive impact on the community
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
It’s not luck its God. Truly all my passion, dedication and hard work all stem from him. I’ve been very fortunate to meet great people along my journey who have poured into me, and taken the time to mentor to me, support me, and teach me. I know some would call that luck truthfully, I would have myself a couple of years ago, but looking at where I’m at now and knowing where I came from, I know that something so skillfully orchestrated could only be God.
Contact Info:
- Address: 260 Peachtree Street NW #750
Atlanta, GA 30303 - Website: https://www.cisatlanta.org
- Phone: 404 897 2390
- Email: info@cisatlanta.org / ( personal ) nicolebush101@gmail.com
- Instagram: CISAtlanta
Image Credit:
Brian Jones
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