Implement community schools comprehensively across all four pillars with adequate planning time, community involvement, and implementation-sensitive evaluation¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The brief distills research-based lessons for policymakers incorporating community schools into ESSA plans: take a comprehensive approach because "All four pillars— integrated student supports, expanded learning time and opportunities, family and community engagement, and collaborative leadership and practices—matter; moreover, they appear to reinforce each other." Schools should operationalize the pillars to local assets and needs, provide sufficient planning time to build trusting relationships, involve community, parents, and young people in needs assessment and design, and evaluate both outcomes and implementation exposure.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Sufficient planning time to build trusting relationships between the school and service providers, parents, and staff
• Involvement of community, parents, and young people in needs assessment, design, planning, and implementation, as ESSA requires

Constraints¶

• Outcomes span multiple domains and take time to fully realize; attendance outcomes are likely achieved before achievement outcomes, so evaluation must allow sufficient time for the strategy to mature

Target Learners¶

• Students in high-poverty schools targeted for comprehensive support
• Students of all backgrounds

Target Learning Goals¶

• Academic achievement
• Attendance
• Behavior and relationships
• School improvement under ESSA

Affordances¶

• Community Schools Four Pillar Framework

Related Strategies¶

• Policy implications: multi-factor, asset-based support for low-SES students
• Integrate multiple strategies in a context-based and community-involved approach to reverse violence and promote peace

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Oakes, J., Maier, A., & Daniel, J. (2017). Community Schools: An Evidence-Based Strategy for Equitable School Improvement. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/equitable-community-schools