Dawn Emerick, SVP & Executive Director, City Year

In an interview with Invest:, Dawn Emerick, SVP and executive director of City Year, discussed the organization’s impact across nine public schools, its focus on attendance, behavior, math, and reading, and its role in developing young professionals for Jacksonville’s workforce.

What do you see as City Year’s most important contribution to public education today?

There are three core areas that we focus on: attendance, behavior, and coursework. Within coursework, that means math and reading. Everything we do in our nine public schools is focused on those areas.

What we know to be true is that we have a really significant impact on the kids we are working with. This past year, our 54 AmeriCorps Volunteers, aka Student Success Coaches, served across nine Duval County schools, delivering more than 27,500 hours of targeted intervention and directly impacting 1,679 students. Our students demonstrated measurable gains in literacy, mathematics, attendance, and overall school engagement. We saw 158 students move to reading proficiency, 274 students move to math proficiency, and hundreds more demonstrate meaningful academic growth throughout the year.

Beyond academics, our teams led more than 81 schoolwide culture and engagement events, creating welcoming school environments where students felt seen, supported, and connected. Based on private-sector tutoring rates, small-group tutoring for three to five students typically costs between $45 and $70 per hour, while one-on-one tutoring typically costs between $40 and $60 per hour. Using only our 27,500 hours of targeted intervention as a conservative benchmark, the comparable private-sector value of these services would range from approximately $1.1 million to $1.9 million if delivered through traditional private tutoring models. Economically, we are bringing a lot of value to the school district.

What outcomes demonstrate the effectiveness of City Year’s model?

When we say student success coaches, those are our AmeriCorps volunteers. We are seeing the coaching and mentorship hours translate into significant grade advancement. Our numbers show that 50% of students who begin with a failing grade in math end up with a passing grade. The same is true for 45% of students in English.

That is powerful. Not only are we giving the school district one-on-one hours with each of these students, but those hours are translating into meaningful progress. Because of our intervention and all of those hours, students who began with failing grades are ending with passing grades.

How is City Year adapting its programs to meet students’ evolving needs?

Every year, the school year ends, and we get ready to ramp up for the next school year. We sit down with the district and look at our survey results, their survey results, teacher satisfaction with City Year, administration satisfaction, and parent satisfaction. Then we sit down with the Duval County Public Schools (DCPS) district and ask whether we need to make changes. Do we need to take one of our nine schools and go into a different school? Where are the pushes and pulls? Where is policy different that might be coming out of Tallahassee that we might need to pivot around?

All of those decisions are data-driven and in partnership with the district, including both the superintendent’s office and the school board. We are intentional about making sure we are addressing the right neighborhoods and going into the schools that actually need this intense engagement. This year, it was identified that student attendance needed to be a priority. Post-pandemic, we know that it has become a real issue.

To have the district really lean on us to work on attendance, and to make that a vital part of our model going forward, is a testament that what we are doing is working.

How do schools, local businesses, community organizations, and families work together to amplify student success?

We make a lot of decisions based on survey engagement from everyone: schools, businesses, and the community. I would say the business community is one area where we are really leaning in.

I have been in Jacksonville for a long time. I have always been involved in the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, and before coming to City Year, I was the chief strategy officer for the Jacksonville Civic Council. It is a membership organization of Jacksonville’s top 100 private-sector CEOs.

The relationships I built through both the Chamber and the Civic Council have influenced how we engage the business community with City Year. It is not only about fundraising. It is also about business partnerships and workforce development.

Our student success coaches’ goal is to make a positive impact on students, but City Year’s goal is also to prepare those student success coaches for life after City Year. This workforce development component is a major priority for our organization.

We are in the classrooms helping students, but our job is also to prepare these young people, ages 18 to 25, for their own careers once they leave City Year. We need the business community for that because our business community is made up of employers. We want to ensure our 18- to 24-year-old student success coaches stay right here in Jacksonville. We want their talent and skills to stay local, whether they become teachers in Duval County Public Schools or enter the workforce within Jacksonville’s business community.

Strengthening our relationships with the corporate sector in Northeast Florida is one of our primary focuses in the year ahead, because we want Jacksonville’s businesses to be employers of choice for our young leaders. The relationships I have through the Chamber and Civic Council will hopefully pay big dividends in strong job placement for our young people.

What misconceptions do people have about national service programs?

Some people think AmeriCorps service is for students who do not know what they want to do. That is not true at all.

Service and civic leadership should be one of the first things an employer looks at and values. A young person who gave a year to civic engagement and civic leadership will have a higher level of soft skills and recognize that as a quality that will make them stronger team players.

This is not a gap year. It’s a leap year. It is not someone saying they do not know what they want to do, so they will just go to AmeriCorps. When you come to City Year as an AmeriCorps volunteer, you receive a biweekly stipend and health insurance. It is also an opportunity to receive field experience in a career path of interest. Plus, our coaches are a part of a national networking community.

There are over 40,000 City Year alumni, so they gain a peer network to engage with. 

Student success coaches also receive what is called a Segal Award, which is a scholarship. Every City Year AmeriCorps volunteer receives about $7,000 that they can apply to further their education. That does not necessarily mean a traditional post-secondary path. It can be used for trade programs, professional development, community college, graduate school, or a four-year degree.

It is an amazing one-year experience that sets you up to be a valuable employee for businesses here in Jacksonville. 

What are the most meaningful ways community leaders, educators, and potential supporters can help assist City Year’s mission?

There are a variety of ways to support the work we are doing.. One is philanthropy. This is hard work, and it requires resources. Philanthropy can take many forms. It could mean supporting one of our events through sponsorship or attendance. It could also mean sponsoring one of our schools.

We have 10 schools heading into this school year, and we are looking for companies to become a multi-year supporter that helps us serve a school in our community. It is our goal to grow to 15 schools by 2032.

We need to work together as a business community and as a community as a whole to figure out how to support that growth to help all students in our region reach their full potential. This work takes individual donors, public dollars, and private dollars. 

People can also volunteer their time. It is time and treasure. We have many community events throughout the year that companies can participate in. Our Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service is a great opportunity to get involved. We select a school in Duval County to beautify, and more than 150 volunteers join us for a day of service.