New CEO of college access, success group OneGoal has walked in shoes of her students

Long before Melissa Connelly was tasked with helping Chicago students get to — and stay in — college, she began high school herself as a troubled teen in a truant program.

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Melissa Connelly, newly named CEO of college access and success organization OneGoal, was a troubled teen who began high school in a truancy program. Today, the 35-year-old mother of two is an award-winning educator with three degrees, working to help dis

Melissa Connelly, newly named CEO of college access and success organization OneGoal, was a troubled teen who began high school in a truancy program. Today, the 35-year-old mother of two is an award-winning educator with three degrees, working to help disadvantaged youth go to college.

Provided by OneGoal

When Melissa Connelly talks of challenges facing disadvantaged Chicago Public Schools students served by the college access and success organization OneGoal, she’s telling her own story.

She’s walked in their shoes.

“I’d missed 62 days of school by the time I went to register for high school. I was automatically enrolled in the Truancy Abatement Program,” recounts the newly named CEO of the Chicago-based organization that’s been helping low-income students nationwide get into college — and stay there — for the past 12 years.

“It was basically a babysitting program until you were old enough to drop out,” Connelly said of the truancy program for troubled teens where she spent her freshman year at Morton West High.

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She was angry and acting out at the time, after learning who her real father was, and that she was biracial — secrets kept by Connelly’s single mother, who was struggling with poverty and addiction, while raising six children.

Connelly didn’t much care about school then. But she hated being labeled in the truancy program, and told the school social worker as much.

“Her name was Mrs. Jeter. She taught me how to self-advocate to get out of that program. Having someone who helps you see more in yourself than you can, I began to aim much higher and realize I could be good at something else besides being bad — because I was really good at that,” says the now 35-year-old mother of two.

“What she did for me is incredibly akin to what OneGoal program directors do for our students. She held up a mirror. She gave me basic skills on how to advocate for yourself, knowledge of what college looks like, how to apply, how to fill out financial aid forms. But more than anything, she helped me believe college was for kids like me.”

OneGoal alum Jawon Mayberry, a senior at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, hugs CEO Melissa Connelly, whom he’d introduced for her speech at OneGoal’s annual Graduation Gala May 8 at Morgan Manufacturing.

OneGoal alum Jawon Mayberry, a senior at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, hugs CEO Melissa Connelly, whom he’d introduced for her speech at OneGoal’s annual Graduation Gala May 8 at Morgan Manufacturing.

Provided by J. Geil/Chicago PhotoPress

Connelly went on to earn her bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and two master’s degrees, in teaching and education administration, from Dominican University. Today, she is an award-winning educator who took the helm of OneGoal from its lauded co-founder and CEO Jeff Nelson on May 24.

OneGoal serves 13,000 public school students in Chicago, Houston, New York, Massachusetts, metro Atlanta and the Bay Area — 97% of them students of color, and 83%, like Connelly, the first in their family to attend college.

Connelly joined the organization in 2014, as senior director of regional college persistence, and after doubling students’ persistence rate, she served as vice president of programs and as chief program officer.

“Melissa is... a visionary with a gift for seeing what is possible for students. She leads with a rare combination of heart and head, and operates with a conviction for our mission that is palpable and contagious,” said Nelson, who began OneGoal as an after-school program with 32 students at Chicago’s Dunbar High School in 2007.

By 2009, it had evolved into its unique three-year model: 25 cohorts take the OneGoal course for high school credit junior and senior year, with a teacher specially trained in the curriculum. That teacher then remotely follows each student for their freshman year of college.

By 2012, OneGoal was serving 1,900 students and began national expansion with major foundation support. By 2014, it was serving 4,000 students. Its successful formula was cited by former President Barack Obama in a Dec. 4, 2014, speech at his White House College Opportunity Day of Action: 81% of OneGoal students go on to college, and 86% make it through the critical first-year predictor of college success.

With increased focus on education and college attainment as the great equalizer, more nonprofits have entered this arena in recent years. OneGoal remains the only program embedded as a credit course.

OneGoal alumna Aly Chavez graduated from UIC in December and now works as a program coordinator at TradeRev. She credits the organization for her success.

(L-R) Alumni Aly Chavez and Jawon Mayberry, with staffer Janene Maclin, at OneGoal’s annual graduation gala May 8 at Morgan Manufacturing.

(L-R) Alumni Aly Chavez and Jawon Mayberry, with staffer Janene Maclin, at OneGoal’s annual graduation gala May 8 at Morgan Manufacturing.

Provided by J. Geil/Chicago PhotoPress

“They helped me navigate the whole college process as an undocumented and first-generation college student, which was really important, because my parents didn’t know anything,” the CPS grad says. “They helped with not only academics, but decision-making, like understanding the smartest way to go to college was to attend a two-year community college first, and applying for every scholarship I could find. In college, they helped me get my internship. They’re always there for you.”

Connelly recently spearheaded revision of the 1,400-page OneGoal curriculum to infuse culturally relevant pedagogy, a student-centered approach embracing cultural identity, which she believes will enhance achievement among its targeted students.

“We are not a college-readiness program for students who are already college ready,” she says, noting OneGoal cohorts enter with an average GPA of 2.8 and SAT score of 840, and that studies show 90% of the nation’s students aspire to post-high school education.

“We believe all students, regardless of academic profile, deserve an opportunity to achieve that,” says Connelly, whose own college experience was not a straight path. She dropped out repeatedly for lack of funding, attending four universities before obtaining her bachelor’s.

“In the U.S., the economic strait you’re born into largely predicts your future social and economic reality. So even though we are told time and time again that with big dreams and hard work you can do anything, the reality is that opportunity and resources are not equally distributed to achieve those dreams,” she says. “We are here to change that.”

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