Full Description
This volume summarizes the community school experiences of the Children's Aid Society and Beacons in New York City and other places; university assisted models in Philadelphia; school system generated community schools in Chicago; communitywide councils in Evansville, Indiana, and Portland, Oregon; and Boston's Full Service Schools Roundtable. The efforts of the Public Education Network to build public will for collaboration and California's statewide Healthy Start Initiative show how it is possible to expand the concepts over larger areas, and the Coalition for Community Schools provides the rationale for national community school legislation. This is the 107th volume of the Jossey Bass quarterly report series "New Directions for Youth Development".
Contents
Editor-in-Chief's Notes (Gil G. Noam). Issue Editors' Notes (Joy Dryfoos, Jane Quinn). 1. Full-service community schools: A strategy-not a program (Joy Dryfoos) The concept that drives the emerging full-service community school movement is this: Schools cannot address all the problems and needs of disadvantaged children, youth, and families. Community schools are operated jointly by school systems and community agencies, are open extended hours, and may provide the site for after-school programs, primary-care health services, mental health counseling, parent education and involvement, and community development. No two community schools are alike. They grow out of a planning process that involves all stakeholders, school personnel, community-based organizations, city and county government, parents, and students. The Quitman Street Community School in Newark, New Jersey, exemplifies this approach. 2. The Children's Aid Society community schools: A full-service partnership model (Jane Quinn) In 1989, the Children's Aid Society (CAS) created an unprecedented partnership with the New York City Board of Education by developing a comprehensive response to the pressing needs of children and families in the northern Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights. After three years of careful planning, CAS and the New York City public schools opened the first community school at Intermediate School 218, offering a full array of supports, services, and learning opportunities. Adding, on average, one partnership school per year and remaining very flexible in adapting its model to the individual needs of each community, CAS now has thirteen community schools around New York City. The model's flexibility is seen also in the success of its national and international adaptation-an intentional part of CAS's work. 3. The New York City Beacons: Rebuilding communities of support in urban neighborhoods (Peter Kleinbard) Established in 1991 in New York City and now operating in at least seven other cities, Beacons are designed to rebuild communities of support for children and youth in urban neighborhoods. The Beacon framework is based on research findings and practitioner experience indicating that programs taking a youth development approach are more effective than those focused on "fixing" specific youth problems. Successful Beacon programs provide positive ways to meet young people's need for safety, a sense of belonging, and mastery; they also provide opportunities for decision making and contributing to others. There are currently eighty Beacons in New York City, serving about 140,000 youth and adults annually. Beacons have been replicated in several parts of the country, including Denver, Minneapolis, Oakland, Palm Beach County, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Savannah. The Youth Development Institute of the Fund for the City of New York provides technical assistance and training to Beacons in New York City and in all seven replication sites. 4. University-assisted community school program of West Philadelphia: Democratic partnerships that make a difference (Ira Harkavy) The university-assisted community school model is showing results for children and youth in West Philadelphia. The University of Pennsylvania's (Penn's) Center for Community Partnerships has coordinated universitywide efforts, in partnership with the community, in order to create and develop community school programs. The Sayre program aims to become a university-assisted community school, with a comprehensive community problem-solving curriculum and communitywide program that is fully integrated across both the Sayre curriculum and the curriculum of a number of Penn's schools. The Penn-Sayre project demonstrates that higher education can be a permanent anchor for revitalizing schools and communities if the vast resources it possesses, particularly its faculty, students, and staff, are brought to bear in a coordinated fashion. 5. Full-service community schools: Cause and outcome of public engagement (Richard Tagle) Public Education Network (PEN)-a national organization of local education funds (LEFs)-along with individuals working to improve public schools and build citizen support for quality public education, embarked on an initiative to address the academic, enrichment, and social support needs of young people to ensure their success in and out of school. PEN's Schools and Community Initiative called for the active participation of broad constituencies-policymakers, stakeholders, and the public-atlarge-to create and implement their common vision for full-service community schools. By engaging broad constituencies across communities, LEFs have been able to build strong relationships between and among community institutions under a common vision. 6. Anchors of the community: Community schools in Chicago (Elizabeth F. Swanson) In partnership with Chicago's public and private sectors, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has successfully implemented a citywide education reform effort, designed to transform Chicago's neighborhood schools into vibrant centers of the community. Mayor Richard M. Daley and Arne Duncan, CEO of CPS, launched the Community Schools Initiative in January 2002. What started as an idea that was developed by a local foundation has now grown into the largest-scale community school effort in the nation, with sixty-seven schools in operation and a plan to move to one hundred community schools by 2007. This initiative currently involves seventeen private funders, ten technical assistance providers, thirty-four community-based organizations that offer on-site services to children and families, and over three hundred additional community partnerships that provide one-day events such as health fairs and violence prevention workshops. 7. The School Community Council: Creating an environment for student success (Daniel Diehl, Cathy Gray, Ginny O'Connor) A model of community-school partnerships is developing within a school district in Evansville, Indiana. Based on a full-service community school philosophy, the model started in one elementary school in the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation and has expanded into a districtwide initiative called the School Community Council. The council is made up of over seventy community organizations and social service agencies working together to establish full-service schools as places of community and to enhance youth and family development. 8. Aligning systems to create full-service schools: The Boston experience, so far (Andrew L. Bundy) Leaders of full-service schools in Boston seek to expand the number and increase the impact of Boston's full-service schools, catalyzing a realignment of public resources and an expansion of private investment. The Full-Service Schools Roundtable, led by a dynamic staff and supported by the mayor and the superintendent of schools, is a steadily growing coalition of educators, public agencies, human service providers, and community leaders. Challenges for the Roundtable are to build the public will to invest in full-service schools; secure leadership from stakeholders; share accountability across sectors so that schools prioritize youth development and health, and service providers share responsibility for school success; and become a political force, championing the strategic realignment of public investments based on child outcomes. 9. Schools Uniting Neighborhoods: The SUN Initiative in Portland, Oregon (Dianne Iverson) The SUN Community Schools Initiative is a community-driven model that allows each school community to design the programs that fit neighborhood needs in Portland, Oregon. County and city governments, local school districts, and community agencies have jointly leveraged resources to support fifty-one community schools. The program is managed by the Multnomah County Department of School and Community Partnerships. The City Parks and Recreation Bureau oversees twelve sites staffed by city employees. Strong support across political systems aligns funding and reduces the fragmentation in existing funding patterns. 10. California's Healthy Start: A solid platform for promoting youth development (Lisa R. Villarreal) A school in Los Angeles County reports absences down by 30 percent and disciplinary actions down by 10 percent. A town near Fresno reports having 99 percent of their new kindergartners ready to start school on the first day of class because their immunization and school readiness outreach was so thorough. A school in San Diego reports youth tobacco use down from 15 percent to 3 percent, absences down by 10 percent, and detentions down by over 50 percent. Schools in Humboldt report a 30 percent improvement in math scores and a 40 percent improvement in reading scores. Young adults report that the assistance they received as teens through their school's Healthy Start program saved their lives and enabled them to be successful parents today. These are results from one of California's most successful education mandates-SB620 1991-California's Healthy Start. 11. Building the community school movement: Vision, organization, and leadership (Marty Blank) On a local level, creating and sustaining community schools requires leadership from local government, schools, businesses, and nonprofit organizations. These groups must provide the fuel and direction to move the community school strategy forward along a common vision and with strategic methods for financing. At the federal level, it must continue to build constituency for community schools if it is to succeed, although the community school movement has made great strides in recent years. There is not now a coherent federal framework to support the community school vision. The proposed Full Services Community Schools legislation would build a national constituency and legislate key principles advocated by the Coalition for Community Schools: developing districtwide community school strategies, focusing on results, and improving coordination of funding streams. Afterword (Joy Dryfoos). Index.
