Martinsville City school chief Scott Kizner knows how to bring ‘em in. Kizner, an innovator and learning advocate, has been implementing creative means of mixing school and community since his arrival. Martinsville is a high-poverty community maintains double-digit unemployment year in and year out.

Like many micropolitan areas, specifically in the southeast, Martinsville is a former textile and furniture boomtown that lost over 10,000 jobs throughout the 1990′s. Micropolitan areas gather little attention from researchers or advocacy groups relative to more urban inner-cities and far-flung rural parts of the US. However, they often face the high poverty and crime rates of inner-cities as well as the challenges of a weak technological infrastructure, high unemployment rates, and a rapidly-increasing ESL population commonly found in rural school divisions.

You’ll often find pockets of “old money” from a by-gone era that still calls the shots in local government. The old guard can be resistant to change, to say the least, and few are whipping out checkbooks to spend on schools they feel haven’t directly impacted them in 30 years.

Kizner has done a commendable job connecting with various sectors of the community and is cleverly weaving a school-community blanket that will benefit all stakeholders, especially the citizens emerging from its classrooms. A few years ago he established an annual fundraising gala to provide mini-grants to support “innovative programs and projects” from entrepreneurial teachers. The high turnout has given many local philanthropists an opportunity to dust off the tuxedos and reevaluate their relationship with the school division. His latest venture, “Safe Schools / Safe Communities“, drew an unprecedented attendance of nearly 1000 and featured breakout sessions led by local agency and advocacy representatives.

The secret to the turnout, according to Kizner, was three-fold: interest in the topic, extra credit for the students, and free food. Simple means toward a significant end. He claimed, “Tonight we are a community of one…united”. Indeed.