Key Practices for Community Schools Transformation

While community schools adopt different structures and practices depending on the needs and assets of the school and surrounding community, they often share common site-level practices. Using evidence-based practice and research, a national collaboration called Community Schools Forward developed a number of resources to help policymakers and practitioners align around a conception of community schools.

One of the resources is a framework developed in consultation with over 700 practitioners, nonprofit leaders, teachers, coordinators, researchers, and policymakers, among others, capturing the essential elements for high-quality community school implementation. The framework synthesizes long-standing experience from practitioners; existing models of community schools, including the four evidence-based pillars identified in LPI’s 2017 research review and adopted into policy in places across the country, the National Education Association’s Six Pillars, and the Coalition for Community Schools’ Standards; and recent research on the science of learning and development. The result is an evolved framework that includes six key integrated practices.

The first four key practices grew directly out of the initial four pillars. Following a year of consultation with stakeholders, the Community Schools Forward team added two new practices. The six key practices of community schools include:

1. Expanded, enriched learning opportunities.
2. Rigorous, community-connected classroom instruction.
3. A culture of belonging, safety, and care.
4. Integrated systems of support.
5. Powerful student and family engagement.
6. Collaborative leadership and shared power and voice.

These whole child practices are best implemented when there is a shared vision and purpose, trusting relationships are formed between members of the school community, and decision-making is both data-informed and inclusive.

Key Practices for Community Schools Transformation (infographic) is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.