Ariel Odugba is an exceptional student. The North Forsyth High School senior is a three-sport athlete and a team captain for both basketball and volleyball, she’s on track to graduate as her class valedictorian, she’s been accepted at prestigious universities like Howard University and NC State University, and she was a recent finalist for the illustrious Morehead-Cain Scholarship. Much of the North Forsyth community sees her as the poster child for the school’s culture.
But she wouldn’t even be at North Forsyth this year if it weren’t for the dedicated support staff that made it possible for her to stay.
Odugba lived in foster care from ages 15-18, and in May of 2024, her circumstances brought her to a new home in Guilford County. She was expected to start attending school in her new home county, essentially starting over after years of establishing herself at North Forsyth. She feared she was going to lose her whole community, but it turned out that North Forsyth and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools had other options for her.
“At first, I wasn't very hopeful,” Odugba said. “I just kind of was like, oh, I guess I'll just stay in Guilford County. And then I heard that we had to have a best interest determination meeting… we had that meeting, and everyone agreed that it was not in my best interest to stay in Guilford County.”
The best interest determination process is part of the Department of Social Services’ standards for placing foster care students in schools. It involves the district’s foster care point of contact, school social workers, DSS representatives, educators, and more to decide where a student should be attending. The process factors in a student’s investment in a particular school and how damaging it would be for them to leave. Based on that element alone, Foster Care Point of Contact Rhonda Lang was confident that Odugba should be allowed to stay right where she was.
“There was nothing that indicated any reason why she should not stay in her school of origin, which is where she really wanted to be,” Lang said. “Students have a right to stay in their school of origin as long as it’s in their best interest, and everything that everybody said indicated it was in her best interest to stay at North.”
North Forsyth School Social Worker Sonja Long-Williams says that best interest determination meetings happen for students at her school at least a couple of times per month, as plenty of students are in foster care and some of them frequently have to change homes. She participates in most of those meetings, and she says that they serve as important opportunities for students to make their own voices heard.
Odugba was prepared to go along with the move that she was led to believe was inevitable, but the best interest determination meeting was her chance to say how much North Forsyth meant to her. Giving students that platform is essential to optimizing their schooling.
“It’s important that they are involved as well because it's not just a team of people making decisions about them,” Long-Williams said. “They are also a part of the best interest determination because they have the right to advocate for themselves as well.”
The process also involved some of the North Forsyth staff members who work closely with Odugba every day. There was Coach LaShonda Griffin, who coaches Odugba in basketball and volleyball, as well as taking on “auntie duties”. Odugba is part of family dinners and game nights with her and her children, someone she gets birthday presents for and talks to on the best and the hardest days. She had no intention of letting one of her kids be taken away.
“When you are part of my program, I become that person and that advocate for you,” Griffin said. “She’s a part of my family… Ari is my child. I love her.”
There was also School Counselor David Cabiness, who agreed to handle Odugba’s transportation for extracurricular activities (regular transportation to and from school is guaranteed, but not for after-school events). Cabiness says that even though it’s a lot of extra effort, it was a no-brainer to help Odugba. Not only had she grown on both him and his twin daughters, but she was a shining example of student engagement that the school hopes to inspire in all of its students.
“She genuinely wanted to be here at North,” Cabiness said. “A lot of people in the community don't want to send their kids to North, but Ari said she wanted to be at North… she has a community that is here for her, not just because she plays sports, but because she's generally a good person.”
Carloe Moser, coordinator for the Leadership, Integrity, Goals, Honesty, Healing, and Triumph (LIGHHT) program at Crosby Scholars, also got involved to make sure that Odugba could be part of Crosby Scholars. Having been adopted as a child himself, Moser has lived experience with foster care and has helped numerous students meet the unique challenges it brings through Crosby Scholars.
Getting into college is a herculean task for students of all backgrounds, but students in foster care face a particularly steep climb. Odugba’s multiple acceptances and scholarship offers are proof of how much these students can achieve when given the proper support.
“Blue Cross and Blue Shield is the guarantor of this program, and they actually looked at the percentage of youth in care that goes to college, and it's about 5%,” Moser said. “They were looking at how to increase those numbers with the LIGHHT program because we've understood there's a lot of barriers that goes into that process of college.”
March is National Social Work Month, and Odugba’s story is a reminder of how much good school social workers accomplish in WS/FCS. While their efforts are invisible to many, they change dozens of students’ entire life trajectories every year by tirelessly working to get them what they need, where they need it. Every student deserves to have a robust support system behind them making sure they can succeed, and social workers are integral to that support.
“We just realized that there were some other things that needed to happen for her, because that's what social workers do, right?” Lang said. “We assess for needs. We look for options. We secure resources.”
Odugba will always appreciate what the district’s social work resources have done for her. North Forsyth is her home. Griffin and Cabiness are the first people she calls when she has big news to share. She’s invested so much in her academics and athletics not only because of her belief in herself, but because she’s surrounded by others who believe in her too. There’s a lifetime of achievement waiting for her after graduation, but she’ll never forget where it all began.
“It was hard to believe that so many people cared about me, because growing up, I didn't always feel that,” Odugba said. “To have that support means everything to me, and I think that I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for all of these people.”