The purpose of this guide is to illuminate best practices for meaningful engagement of youth in Community Schools and to recognize youth voice as a community asset that can help advance more equitable school systems. Youth voice plays an important role in redesigning how public education functions. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted education and…

In today's global economy, a high-quality, comprehensive education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity--it is a prerequisite for success. Such an education must promote academic knowledge and skills, as well as the kind of individual and social competencies that are essential for navigating the relationships and challenges of the modern…

ExpandED Schools (formerly TASC) has spent the past 17 years helping schools and community organizations find the right partners. This resource guide offers a guide to the strategic questions school teams might ask themselves and their potential partners to have the best outcomes for young people. The following attachment is included: School…

Social return on investment (SROI) analysis offers a practical new approach for measuring and communicating the value of outcomes achieved by programs that provide social, health, and educational services to children and their families. This guide highlights the key steps in conducting SROI research, issues in data-gathering and analysis, as well…

Community schools have always rooted their work in a solid body of research about what it takes to promote student success, including parental involvement in children's education, rich and engaging out-of-school experiences, student wellness and family stability. Because the community schools strategy, on its face, makes sense--and because the…

Standardized tests have been selected as a key assessment factor in expanding the academic achievement of the national student population. However, these tests position immigrant students at the risk of academic failure, leading education experts to search for new strategies and teaching models. The "Handbook of Research on Assessment…

This book is a guide for parents who wish to raise children with more than one language and literacy. Drawing on interdisciplinary research, as well as the experiences of parents of multilingual children, this book walks parents through the multilingual reading and writing process from infancy to adolescence. It identifies essential literacy…

This toolkit is designed to help community schools evaluate their efforts so that they learn from their successes, identify current challenges, and plan future efforts. It provides a step-by-step process for planning and conducting an evaluation at your community school site(s). The toolkit is a practical, hands-on guide that makes it possible for…

This handbook is designed to help state leaders form vital connections between schools and communities to improve student learning. It explains that community schools are beneficial because they meet students' basic needs, including safety; offer high quality curriculum and teaching aligned with academic standards; provide learning experiences…

Boston's Jamaica Plain High School is a bright, colorful facility that belies that building's former life as a utilitarian warehouse. (Author)

Suggestions for developing active school-community partnerships are offered in this guidebook, which is based on the experiences of many Wisconsin communities. A central theme is that today's public schools must rediscover the importance of integrating the entire community with the formal education process and lifelong learning. Chapter 1…

Looks at what some communities faced with declining enrollment have done to solve the problem of excess school space. (MLF)

This handbook outlines a variety of the strategies that the Salem Public School District in Oregon used to actively involve citizens in governing their school system through community schools. Emphasis is placed on successes, failures, and principles of the community-based problem-solving and decision-making activities which the Salem School…

An interagency planning process, with citizen participation, for the shared use of educational facilities can lead to increased availability of educational facilities, enhanced revenue potential from building use, and improved facility design. (Author/MLF)

This is a resource booklet designed to facilitate the involvement of all citizens, not just parents, in the public schools. Citizen involvement in education is examined from an historical perspective, and legal mandates for citizen involvement in the state of New Jersey are outlined. Presented in the pamphlet are guidelines for the formation of…