Case Studies
Chicago
The Center has provided technical assistance and training to the Chicago Community Schools Initiative throughout its seven-year history, from its inception to the present day.
At the outset, Center staff advised district, civic and philanthropic leaders about the community schools approach and recommended strategies for going to scale rapidly. During this initial phase, the Center hosted several high-level study visits to our community schools in New York City; one such delegation included Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan, now the U.S. Secretary of Education. Once an initial cohort of community schools was selected, our staff provided training and consultation to principals and directors.
As the Chicago Community Schools Initiative grew from this initial cohort to its present size of more than 150 schools, our staff provided regular consultation and training at the request of the Chicago Public Schools as well as individual partner organizations, including the Children’s Home and Aid Society of Illinois and the Centers for New Horizons. We also helped the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration develop the country’s first graduate-level preparation program for community school directors.
The Chicago Community Schools Initiative regularly sends representatives to our biannual Community Schools Practicum conference. In addition, our staff have served as “thinking partners” to initiative leaders, providing regular consultation through in-person contacts and telephone and e-mail exchanges.
Boston
Center staff has supported Boston’s leadership in the community schools movement since 1997, when the Gardner Elementary School in Allston-Brighton became one of the initial adaptation sites in the Extended-Service Schools initiative, funded by the Wallace Foundation.
As the Gardner’s work expanded to ConnectFive (a multi-site initiative), our staff continued to provide guidance, training and other assistance. We subsequently invited Boston Schools Superintendent Tom Payzant to contribute a chapter to our 2005 book entitled Community Schools in Action: Lessons from a Decade of Practice and have worked collaboratively with the Boston Full-Service Schools Roundtable as it sought to coordinate all the community schools activity in the Boston area.
Most recently, the Boston Public Schools asked the Center to provide intensive training and consultation to staff of the BPS Department of Extended Learning Time, Afterschool and Services (DELTAS), which expanded our role into building the capacity of the capacity-builders—BPS staff whose role is to assist 35 local community school and after-school sites. Center staff focused specifically on building the coaching skills of DELTAS managers as they work within their portfolio of sites to develop full-service schools.
San Mateo County, CA
In 2003, the Center entered into a collaborative relationship with the John W. Gardner Center at Stanford University and the Center for School-Community Partnerships at UC Davis (University of California at Davis) to create an Academy for Community Schools Development—a three-year training and consultation effort whose goal was to develop, implement and sustain a multi-site community schools initiative in Redwood City and Half Moon Bay.
The collaborative jointly developed a sequential nine-session course that was offered to teams of school and community leaders from five schools. The teams met three times each year for day-long training and planning sessions, and then returned to their schools to address the variety of issues involved in moving from a traditional school to a community school. Parents were active participants in all of the sites teams, as were leaders from county health and mental health agencies. Each team was supported by a JGC Community Partnership Liaison who worked closely with the site teams throughout the three-year process. Our staff helped to build the capacity of these key staff members to enhance their coaching and consultation skills. All five of these community schools are thriving and have sustained their comprehensive and integrated services.
Kent County, MI
Since 2006, the Center has provided coaching, training and technical assistance to the Kent School Services Network (KSSN), a community schools initiative in Kent County, Michigan that was formed to provide students with the supports, services and opportunities needed to eliminate barriers to learning and to promote student success.
After conducting extensive background information on school reform and integrated service delivery efforts around the country—including a study visit to a Children’s Aid Society community school in New York City—the Grand Rapids Education Reform Initiative decided to launch KSSN. The KSSN Leadership Team includes executives from three school districts, several Kent County departments (health, social services intermediate school district), Network 180 (mental health services), Spectrum Health/Healthier Communities, several private foundations and the local United Way. During the first year, our staff provided monthly on-site training and consultation to help the initiative achieve its ambitious goal of establishing nine community schools. During the second and third years, our staff continued to provide a menu of assistance that included on-site consultation, study visits to New York City and systemic-level coaching. KSSN has commissioned a three-year evaluation of the initiative and is active in the Urban Network of the Coalition for Community Schools.
England
Several years ago, the British government established a national goal to have all of England’s 23,000 schools become “Extended Schools” (community schools) by the year 2010. The Children’s Aid Society has assisted this effort in several ways.
Our Center has hosted numerous study visits for national policymakers, including members of the British Parliament, to our schools in New York City; members of our organization’s executive leadership have traveled to England to provide on-site consultation and make a presentation to the British Parliament on community schools; we have provided materials, books and other tools; and, for many years, we have worked collaboratively with key staff from ContinYou, the leading community school technical assistance provider in the UK. As of 2009, the work in England is on track to meet its ambitious national goal, and the Center has been instrumental in sharing the British story with policymakers and education leaders in the U.S. This story includes not only phenomenal uptake on the community schools strategy but also solid results through a national evaluation led by Professor Alan Dyson.
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The Children's Aid Society
National Center for
Community Schools
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