This study leverages data collected from a study of Baltimore's 21st Century School Buildings Program to understand the potential of a school facilities investment to catalyze community development. We leverage a school-community partnership typology to examine partnerships at 21CSBP schools in three neighborhoods. We found that schools provided…

This study explored the role of Equity Leadership in implementing the Community School Policy Framework in California, focusing on addressing systemic inequities. Using a qualitative approach, this research drew on six in-depth interviews with public sector leaders in the California Community School Partnership Program (CCSPP). Findings…

For at least two decades, several California schools have embraced a community schools model that marries schools and community organizations to seamlessly provide a variety of supports to students and families in communities with the highest needs. But when the pandemic hit, those needs multiplied. Members of the California State Board of…

This report underscores that the prevailing view of community schools is "just a beginning" for their ongoing development and contribution to improving schools. We stress that defining the initiative as a "community-based effort to coordinate and integrate ... services" raises some concerns and limits their evolution. We…

At a time when students of families living in poverty have experienced the worst of the economic trauma caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, community schools have reemerged as a promising intervention for addressing lack of access to quality education and economic prosperity. Policymakers are making investments in scaling up community schools;…

With students, families, and the education systems that serve them still reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, a $3 billion state investment in community schools offers an opportunity for system transformation that can address urgent and persistent whole-child needs and their impact on teaching and learning. Although the possibilities…

According to Randi Weingarten, attacks on public education are not new. The difference today is that the attacks are intended to destroy it. Over the last three years, legislators in 45 states proposed hundreds of laws placing public schools at the center of culture wars: laws seeking to ban books from school libraries; laws restricting what…

For more than a year, the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) conducted research in New Mexico, including interviews, site visits, document review, and new analyses of data provided by the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED). The purpose of the study was to provide New Mexico leaders a research perspective on the challenges facing education…

Urban policymakers, city officials, and community residents utilize neighborhood revitalization initiatives to establish safe and empowered neighborhoods. In 2016, leaders in Columbus, Ohio, launched a neighborhood revitalization effort designed to improve safety, access to opportunities, and economic development in the historically underserved…

Community schools respond to a variety of risk factors that impede student learning and development. School and community leaders in Canyons School District (CSD) have created community schools across one highly impacted feeder pattern to strengthen academic learning efforts, school climate and youth development opportunities, parent and family…

In at least 55 countries worldwide, from, India to Canada, Russia to New Zealand, and Egypt to South Africa, Community, Schools are being developed. The International Centre of Excellence for Community Schools (ICECS) is a new non-government organization (NGO) established with funding from C. S. Mott Foundation, which is developing actual and…

Across the country, school district superintendents are transforming into community school leaders. Responsible for systems of learning that also include school nutrition, bussing, safety, finances, community engagement, and so much more, superintendents recognize that they need a different strategy to effectively address the learning needs of the…

America has learned from No Child Left Behind that focusing on equity demands that we look and more than test scores alone or they quickly become all that matters. That approach overlooks other aspects of a child's life that are critical. The new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) recognizes this lesson and encourages states and districts to…

There are more than three dozen systemic community schools initiatives currently underway nationwide, with even more communities considering the reform. Yet few tools exist to help school districts, government agencies, and communities at large track their progress. To address this gap, Research for Action (RFA), with generous funding from the…

This brief draws on interviews with school principals, community school managers (CSMs), and district leaders in two community schools and focused on school improvement efforts based on Oakland Unified School District's (OUSD) full-service community schools model (FSCS). New Highland RISE Community Elementary School (RISE Community) and Elmhurst…