Community Schools are a time whose idea has come, a solution that was waiting for the perfect storm–and the perfect storm is here. In this final installment, we’ll look at the lessons learned from the community schools movement. What can...

A recent review of school guidance and communications from the Centers on Disease Control and Prevention argues that the federal agency failed often in its goal of providing timely, actionable information to states and districts around COVID-19 safety protocols. As...

In March 2020, school districts across California closed their doors, rapidly adjusting to remote instruction in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenges associated with the adjustment are unprecedented and their impacts continue to be felt, even as students have mostly...

One of the important lessons of the pandemic is that virtual learning is here to stay, but it has a lot of room for improvement. And teachers, principals, and district leaders should be thinking hard about how to make remote...

Community schools emerged in the Greater Salt Lake City region of Utah in the mid-2000s beginning with the Salt Lake School District. Today, there are approximately 30 community schools throughout the Greater Salt Lake City region. Along the way, organizations...

In a Community School Policy Brief by Hayin Kimner, Policy Analysis for California Education, Kimner says, “An effective community school recognizes that student success does not rely solely on the expertise of instructional professionals but is also the result of...

The Learning Policy Institute, the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, Children’s Aid National Center for Community Schools, the Coalition for Community Schools and the below members of the Community Schools Forward task force provide this policy memo to the...

For most schools, the catch up strategy is asking teachers to run a few review sessions and to generally pick up the pace of instruction. Researchers say that is not going to work well and they found kids who were...

According to the Community Schools Playbook, a project of the Partnership for the Future of Learning, “Many community schools stay open year-round, from dawn to dusk, and on weekends. The most comprehensive community schools are academic and social centers where...

In President Biden’s State of the Union speech last week, he highlighted the importance of addressing the lasting impact of COVID-19 on our nation’s children in part through the elevation of the community schools strategy. The long-standing community schools movement...

The state has significantly enhanced the potential for school and community leadership to act together to support student learning and development through the California Community Schools Partnership Program. The program—particularly the planning grants, just released on March 1—holds the potential...

Since COVID-19 shut down classrooms in March 2020, education advocates, teachers and parents have repeatedly sounded the alarm, saying extended closures and distance learning would stymie students’ achievements. During the pandemic, students across ethnic groups saw an increase in Ds and...

Schools across San Francisco embody elements of community schools, which aim to assess students’ needs and bring in outside services ranging from dental care to Medi–Cal assistance to arts and music programming while building deeper connections to students and families...

Most educators and parents would agree that the sweeping virtual instruction thrown together overnight at the beginning of the pandemic wasn’t nearly as effective as in-person learning for most students. So, does that mean K–12 educators and policymakers should write...

n coming weeks, California will embark on a massive undertaking to convert several thousand schools in low-income neighborhoods into centers of community life and providers of vital services for families as well as students. Known as community schools, they will...

Sacramento City Unified School District introduced a new district “monitor-liaison” last week to assist in investigations regarding recent racial incidents at two campuses. Superintendent Jorge Aguilar says that the district remains committed to building stronger relational trust among its Black...

California’s K–12 students experienced significant academic setbacks during the 2020-21 school year of mainly remote learning, showing growing achievement gaps, lagging progress in math and English, increased chronic absenteeism and a slight decline in the statewide graduation rate, according to...

As communities continue dealing with the fallout of the pandemic and districts grapple with how best to spend an influx of one-time funding to support students, experts say there is no better time to begin looking into community school models. The...

Sacramento City Unified School District Superintendent Jorge Aguilar provides an update on school reopening amid Omicron and updates on the district’s vaccine mandate ahead of its January 31st deadline.

The 2021-22 school year was supposed to have been a rebound to normalcy, with Covid in the rear-view mirror. Instead, midway through, the year has been “shock and overload,” with teachers and administrators “working harder and losing ground,” as Mike...

California high school seniors were in 10th grade when the Covid-19 pandemic closed schools and sent them home to learn. This year, many seniors are either struggling to earn enough credits to graduate or, because of a new state law...

It didn’t take long before the consequences of the pandemic shone a spotlight on the growing inequities within our communities and systems. Existing disparities in housing and food security, education, and health care, for example, grew wider between socioeconomic and...

This episode of School’s In features Ted Lempert, a former California State Assembly member and longtime champion for education reform who currently serves as PACE advisory board member and president of Children Now, a national research and advocacy organization.  He joins...

In 2013 students of color at the University of California at Los Angeles Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, known as UCLA SEIS, wrote a letter to the school’s leadership, reporting a “hostile racial climate” on campus. The students...