This study provides an overview of the literature of Florida's only Community Partnership Schools™ model, as a strategy to enhance family and community engagement in low performing high poverty elementary schools. More specifically, the focus of this study was to determine to what degree parents perceived the effectiveness of family and community…

The Academy of Information Technology and Robotics (AITR) in the Volusia County (Florida) Schools district is leading students to stronger academic gains and better preparation for college and career. AITR is a beefed-up version of the career academy model that began in Philadelphia in 1969. The strengths of AITR exemplify the features of career…

Background: Schools, school districts, and communities seeking to implement the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model should carefully and deliberately select planning, implementation, and evaluation strategies. Methods: In this article, we identify strategies, steps, and resources within each phase that can be integrated into…

Oakland is home to one of the most demographically diverse populations in the country, with residents of different racial, ethnic, national, linguistic, and other cultural groups. In response to these vast disparities, in 2010, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) launched an initiative to transform all district schools into full service…

Integrated student supports (ISS), sometimes referred to as integrated student services, represents an emerging field of practice that aims to address persistent disparities in educational achievement and attainment. ISS is a school-based approach to promoting students' academic achievement and educational attainment by coordinating a seamless…

Between 2007 and 2009, reports were released on the results of three separate large-scale random assignment studies of the effectiveness of school-based mentoring programs for youth. The studies evaluated programs implemented by Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) affiliates (Herrera et al., 2007), Communities In Schools of San Antonio,…

Out-of-school time programs provide intervention and prevention services to young people who are deemed "at-risk" with the goal of improving their social, emotional, and academic development. However, research indicates that children and youth who are most "at-risk" are less likely to participate in out-of-school time programs, and do so less…

The chapters in this collection, distributed to conference participants as a springboard for conference discussions, consider sustainable models for school-family-community collaboration, partnerships in education, and other ways to improve learning for urban youth. The contributions are: (1) "The Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community"…

This paper presents a family of studies associated with a large-scale evaluation conducted to assess the impact of research-based models and promising strategies on non-cognitive and cognitive school indicators. In a partnership between community-based organizations and a large urban public school district, project SHIELD provided services to…

Using the case of the Brookline Early Education Project (BEEP), begun in Boston in the early 1970s, this book provides a framework for planning, administering, and evaluating a comprehensive birth-to-kindergarten program. Early education programs based in the school can increase parental involvement and improve school performance for children from…

This paper reports the findings of the first annual evaluation of the Full Service Schools Grant of the Family Services Center in Gainesville, Florida. The Family Services Center is a coordinated effort among local, state, and federal agencies to provide integrated health, education, and social services to qualified families who may require a…