What IS a Community School ?
According to the national Coalition for Community Schools, a community school is both a place and a set of partnerships between the school and community resources. Working collaboratively, schools, families, and community partners organize resources according to the interests and needs of local students and their families. Programs and services are delivered at and around the school before during and after the traditional school day and align outcomes with the academic curriculum and all areas of student development.
In a Community School , student success is ensured by atten tion to four pillars of support
How do I use the four pillars to consider Community School development?
In a well developed Community School , the school partner s with families and the community to organize community resources around the strengths and needs of students and their families. Student development is addressed holistica l ly . Families are supported to ensure their capacity to support their children’s success in school and in life. Through partnership and collaboration, a strong community school seeks and organizes resources to ensure that all students have access to the supports that ensure success. Each community school organizes its resources so that all four pillars of support are well developed .
Assessing Community School Development
Most of us recognize that students come to school with a variety of issues that impact their ability to access the education that is being offered.
Every school has supports in place to ensure that students achieve. In some schools these supports are more systematized than in others. In a strong community school, resources and supports to enhance the development and outcomes of all students have been implemented and systematized. In most community schools, someone has the task of organizing and coordinating these supports to ensure that the “abc’s” of community schools are in place:
Align (complete)
Bring
Coordinate
Assessing where you are in community school development begins by assessing everything that is present in the school to support student success in addition to the curriculum. Usually a cross section of stakeholders (i.e., the Oversight Committee, with input from the school counselors, the school staff, other organizations providing services, the school improvement plan, etc.) can generate and assess a list of what is currently available using the “Community School Programs and Services Currently Available” assessment form. (attached)
What have you learned from this exercise? Who contributed to your understanding? What questions have been generated? What needs have been identified? What needs are and/or have been met through existing programs, resources, and services?
The Four Pillars
Community schools ensure the success of all students by ensuring that they have supports in place along all four “pillars” (of support) that make up the community school model:
Academic s
Healthy
Community
Families
One way to assess where your school is on the community school development continuum is to create a vision for what a successful community would look like in your community. Based on your current understanding of the children, adults (including older people, people without children or children in the school), and families (including older and younger siblings of community school students, older family members, etc.) in your school and community, what kinds of supports might be necessary to ensure the success of all students? Bring community stakeholders together and discuss what it would look like if all four areas of support were in place, highly functioning, and coordinated with other areas of student development. Use the Four Pillars Assessment to record your vision for each, and then try to identify the status of each support currently in your school/community. What steps (benchmarks) might you take as a community to move from where you are now toward your vision?
Assessing Your School’s Community School Development