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Community schools: Because all schools should be schools where everyone wants to send their children.

Our schools belong to all of us: to students, parents, educators and staff—and to the communities schools anchor. But six decades after Brown v. Board of Education, our public schools are still separate and still unequal. Across the country, too many children and families aren’t getting access to the educational opportunities and vital services that could help them succeed. Children in many low-income, African-American and Latino neighborhoods attend schools that lack a rigorous college-bound curriculum, offer little access to technology and the arts, and suffer from inadequate staffing and support. For the past decade and more, the corporate model of school reform has been increasing, not fixing, the inequities in our schools: closing schools rather than improving them and diverting precious resources to charter schools without holding charters accountable. Today in America, a child’s access to educational opportunity too often remains dependent on what zip code that child lives in. 

Community schools can help level the playing field. This strategy envisions school as the place in our neighborhoods where all parents, children and community residents can access high-quality education, key services, and the learning and enrichment opportunities that open the doors to a good life.  While education alone can’t end poverty, schools can serve as that hub that helps create and coordinate the supports and services that students and families need to thrive.

A community school brings together many community partners in a way that is intentional, coordinated, and focused on results. What else makes a school a community school?

  • A range of customized services to students and the community available before, during and after school and provided year-round to the full community. These can include:
    • Academic services such as tutoring or community-based learning;
       
    • Medical services such as primary, vision, dental and nutritional services;
       
    • Mental health services such as counseling and psychiatrists; and,
       
    • Adult education classes, such as adult literacy and GED classes.
       
  • A curriculum that is engaging, culturally relevant and challenging, with a broad selection of classes and after-school programs in the arts, languages, and ethnic studies, as well as AP and honors courses, services for English Language Learners, special education, GED preparation and job training.
     
  • Partnerships and programs outside the classroom to enrich classroom instruction and help students see the real-life applications of classroom content.  For example, a local manufacturing plant can team up with a high school math department to show students the practical applications of geometry in designing packaging; meanwhile, a senior-living facility can work with fifth-graders to create an oral history project on the history of immigration.
     
  • A clear, results-driven vision. Most community schools include a site resource coordinator, who makes sure that all the service and community providers are working together and focusing on reaching the same goals. But everyone involved—community partners, families, teachers, school staff and administration—shares responsibility for accountability and continuous improvement.
     
  • In effective community schools, the full community actively participates in planning and decision-making. Decisions are made by consulting with all stakeholders, including parents, families, teachers and school staff. This process honors the link between the success of the school and the thriving of the community as a whole.
     
  • High quality teaching, not high stakes testing. Appropriate assessments are used to help teachers meet students’ needs, and educators have a real voice in professional development.
  • Positive discipline practices such as restorative justice and social and emotional learning supports, so students grow and contribute to the school community and beyond. Suspensions and harsh punishments are eliminated or greatly reduced.
     
  • A deep level of family engagement. Families should be involved in the local site-level decision making process, take leadership roles, and engage in numerous ways in the school community.  Also, teachers can support community schools implementation, by carrying out the Parent Teacher Home Visit project, to build and deepen relationships with their students’ families. 

Community schools aren’t just about education; they’re the new heart of the community itself. And community schools work. Research confirms that community schools have a positive impact on: student learning, student attendance, student access to health care, student behavior and youth development, and parent and family participation in children’s education and in the school.[1] Across the country, community schools have been shown to:

  • Reduce health-related obstacles that cost students instructional time. Students miss fewer days of school for treatable illnesses and learning is less impeded are less distracted by medical issues.
     
  • Decrease student mobility rates. When schools serve as hubs of the community, families can establish roots rather than moving around to receive necessary services.
     
  • Help families support the work teachers are doing in the classroom, by helping parents and families gain skills to assist their kids with homework and reinforce the lessons taught at school.

Community schools become hubs for the entire community rather than simply a place where classes are held. For example, in Cincinnati, community schools have become an indispensable way of life in every neighborhood, with students and families receiving both academic and nonacademic supports. As a result, Cincinnati is rated the highest-performing urban school district in the state, graduation rates have risen exponentially, and middle-class families are moving back into the city.


Learn more about community schools and how you can support this proven approach in your community




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