Say Yes Guilford President and Chief Executive Officer Wendy Poteat dropped a bombshell on the Guilford County Board of Commissioners when she spoke to the board at the commissioners’ annual retreat on Thursday, March 17.
Poteat told the board that the national Say Yes organization was now out of business and she added that Say Yes Guilford was strongly considering a name change so as not to give credit to a “defunct” organization for the work her local organization is doing.
Anyone with a child in the Guilford County Schools system in recent years knows the story of Say Yes To Education in the county. In 2015, with a great deal of fanfare, the philanthropic organization came into Guilford County and announced that it would pay the last dollars needed to allow all graduating seniors to pay for college regardless of the financial situation of the student or the family. The organization worked with private donors, a list of colleges and scholarship organizations to see that any child graduating could afford college.
Some families even moved to Guilford County specifically to get the benefit.
In March of 2017, the Rhino Times ran a story titled “Say Yes May Have To Say No” stating that the funding model for Say Yes Guilford was completely inadequate and that the organization was facing an enormous financial shortfall that made it impossible to deliver on its promises.
Poteat said that, after that debacle, there were two years of “radio silence” from the national Say Yes To Education.
“I don’t know if you guys know this, but the national organization of Say Yes has gone out of business,” she told the board.
“And we’re having a conversation of, should we still be ‘Say Yes’ in this community,” she said.
Poteat added, “One of the things I will share with you is that, these support services we’re doing, this is not the Say Yes model. We don’t want to give a defunct group the credit for the work that we’re building out in this community”
This is what we call a clue: It is simply not sustainable.
Are commissioners still going to throw money after this failed organization. They brought in the can’t leave soon enough Superintendent because of her experience working with this bunk charity and it has apparently gone defunct. Why would anyone continue funding an arm of a failed (spectacularly ) overreaching, expensive, and opaque organization. I’m sure our officials will continue throwing lipstick at this pig until it is pretty enough to present as a beauty queen.
Once the smoke and mirrors are broke and blown away, what do you have left to see?
nothing you can understand
Good news! Due to Covid, most Guilford County Schools haven’t been able to have sports teams for a couple of years. Northeast Middle School will have it’s first baseball game on Monday at Home!
I told my wife from the beginning this wasn’t possible. Say yes was a pipe dream and still is even with the broken promises initially until now its still a pipe dream. Even in its reduced standards it will and can not work unless it is government funded which I believe was the goal from the beginning.
A wish that could not come true. Pixie dust and unicorns could not compete with the real world.
Yes to all the above statements, and City of Greensboro can add Ms Hightower’s program to the throw money at it till it blows up . So far, maybe $2 million has been set aside to her non-profit . Just saying
Perhaps Skip will donate the $2mil that the County wants to donate to his Civil Rights Museum to the Say Yes Fund. Maybe we can find out which is more important to him, education or a pet project.
Seems like I read that the politicians of yesteryear would represent their location for a term and then go back to their homes /farms usually.We now have politicians local to national that represent us and that never want to go back to an old job,one that probably has work attached to it. They have voted them a nice salary for doing something that they should not be paid for in the beginning.Because they look at this position as their job and they are there till they DIE. (We just had a commissioner that did that.Not only that we have started little ‘SIDE’jons that we can get taxpayers money for ,which we are helping our constituents.It seems we have several of those in city council and commissioners that have these side operations-raking in Millions of dollars.When are these folks going to present a detailed accounting of these finances or is this just wasted taxpayers money going down a deep ‘ rat hole’.Also I notice all these individuals are minorities ,is this the prerequisite for getting free taxpayers money.I read several years ago am I doing Colorado applied for a job and was told Minority only.His resolve was I’ll change my name to Rodriquez.
When you vote people into a job in politics you are not sure what you get they have a lifetime rite on that job and will be there till death do us part!!!!
Not understanding the issue. I thought they had already broke away???
https://www.rhinotimes.com/archives/national-say-yes-cuts-ties-guilford/
Not wonder why the National Office in Hartford, CT was closed. Little I knew about this company when I first applied to work there as a National Director of Scholarships. Three directors had passed already when I took over the job. Having a financial aid background, I thought I will be able to shadow and implement some of the procedures learned in Financial Aid. There were good people working a this organization, especially in the local chapters; however, some of the higher ups were full of themselves. Especially the CEO at that time, E.G. who was very arrogant and thinking that he could treat people in whatever way he wanted to. It was all about politics and making a name for themselves and for the organization, hanging out with the Collin Powel Foundation and Bill Gates Foundation. Perhaps Mr. Weiss didn’t know how his organization was being managed at the “National Level” since I never had the opportunity to met him but I can say that there was little organization, especially when you had work in financial aid and you know it is all about policies and procedures. Sad for families and students who trusted this company.