Community Schools

Abstract

Community schools offer children an integrated set of educational and social services, but sound scientific evidence on their effectiveness is lacking. Therefore, this study reviews the literature on community schools. First, we characterize community schools and find that their key activities are cooperating with other institutions, involving parents, and offering extracurricular activities. Second, we describe an exemplary community school for which causal evidence shows improved academic achievement. Third, we explore whether the three main activities of community schools influence academic performance, dropout, and risky behavior. Academic performance does not appear to be influenced by extracurricular activities. On the other hand, extracurricular activities do appear to be related to reduced dropout and risky behavior. In addition, there is a positive association of cooperation and parental involvement with academic achievement, and a negative correlation of these two factors with dropout and risky behavior. However, more causal evidence is needed before it can be concluded that community schools are effective.

How Do Promise Neighborhoods’ Strategies Align With Research Evidence on Poverty and Education?

“…Grant applications mostly focus on in-school issues including preschool, teacher quality, tutoring, attendance, college enrollment, school safety, and school climate. This is broadly consistent with community schools, which a recent review (Heers, Van Klaveren, Groot, & Maassen van den Brink, 2016) describes as having three main goals: increasing academic achievement, decreasing dropout rate, and decreasing risky behavior.…”

Community Schools and the Role of University-School-Community Collaboration

“…The coordinators engage in outreach with other parents and offer adult education classes and leadership institutes. This level of collaboration offers parents opportunities to become "funds of knowledge" (Heers, Van Klaveren, Groot, & Maassen van den Brink, 2016, p. 1023 in their community schools, and increases the presence and activity of those traditionally alienated from the school. Empowering parents to lead and train other groups of parents makes use of the cultural resources parents from different backgrounds bring into schools.…”

“…The principal understands the importance of giving essential stakeholders a voice in decision-making that influences the scaling of community school initiatives. Community schools implementing these strategies can reduce risky behavior, lower the dropout rate, and increase the academic performance of their students (Heers et al, 2016).…”

Educating Students in Poverty: Building Equity and Capacity with a Holistic Framework and Community School Model

“…Individually and collectively these four features of community schools meet the criteria of ESSA for evidence-based research for school improvement (Heers, Klaveren, Groot, & van den Brink, 2016;Moore et al, 2014;Oakes et al, 2017;Walsh et al, 2014). Also, the community school model has been effective in turning around failing schools and reducing the incomebased achievement gap (Dobbie & Fryer, 2011Heers et al, 2016;Oakes et al, 2017;Walsh et al, 2014).…”

“…Individually and collectively these four features of community schools meet the criteria of ESSA for evidence-based research for school improvement (Heers, Klaveren, Groot, & van den Brink, 2016;Moore et al, 2014;Oakes et al, 2017;Walsh et al, 2014). Also, the community school model has been effective in turning around failing schools and reducing the incomebased achievement gap (Dobbie & Fryer, 2011Heers et al, 2016;Oakes et al, 2017;Walsh et al, 2014). Furthermore, community schools are associated with improved student attendance, increased student graduation rates, decreased student risky behaviors, increased family engagement, improved student and family health, and positive student and family attitudes toward school, which coupled with increased student achievement tend to foster the overall well-being of students and families in poverty (Heers et al, 2016;Oakes et al, 2017).…”