Events

Join the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) at the 2021 National Family and Community Engagement Conference, June 1-4, 2021 as we amplify the importance of family and community engagement as an essential element in efforts to improve outcomes for children cradle to career. Successfully engaging families, strengthening family-school partnerships and aligning efforts requires building the capacity of everyone involved. The ramifications of multiple crises – public health, racial justice, and economic – have magnified and exacerbated challenges in our most vulnerable communities. As the pandemic unfolded through various stages, schools and districts with good engagement practices and deep community partnerships were in a better position to respond to the crisis, innovate and build on promising approaches.

The Conference will provide an opportunity to highlight innovation and high-impact strategies; and this year, we are excited to spotlight The School District of Philadelphia! Join us as state leaders, school and district leaders, administrators, educators, community-based organizations, researchers and families come together to focus on solutions that enhance and expand engagement through family-school-community partnerships. With pre-conference sessions, plenaries, workshops, deep dive sessions and more, participants will be immersed in many examples of high-impact engagement work taking place across the country.
 


Click here to access the recording.

Prior to the pandemic, schools in the U.S. too often ignored or inadequately responded to the social, emotional and psychological needs of students. School closures have only added to the mental health challenges, with many, including high achievers, experiencing anxiety, depression and a variety of other issues. How might schools be organized to better support students’ mental and emotional well-being? Can access to social workers, counselors and other support services be expanded without significant increases in funding? 
 

Host: Pedro A. Noguera, Dean, USC Rossier School of Education

Moderator: Elizabeth Green, Co-founder and CEO, Chalkbeat

Panelists:

Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, USC Rossier Professor of Education, Psychology, and Neuroscience and Director, USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education

José Muñoz, Director, Coalition for Community Schools

Bror Saxberg, Vice President, Learning Sciences, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Reports

The Rand Corporation's new Impact Study provides evidence that Community Schools are effective in increasing graduation rates and student achievement, and in reduce chronic adsenteeism and siciplinary incidents. For more information, click here. 

Build the Movement

Support the Coalition for Community Schools’ census to count the number of Community Schools nationwide. 

Community Schools provide an equity-driven, researched-based strategy for uniting, schools, families and communities for young people’s success. As an ecosystem of national, state and local cross-sector leaders, the Coalition for Community Schools has supported the growth and development of Community Schools since 1998.   

Stimulated by the Coalition, there has been an insurgence of proof, through research and growth activity in the field, that Community Schools have positive impact. There are now approximately 5,000 reported Community Schools across the country, with growing demand in rural, suburban, and urban communities and emerging international interest. With nearly 100,000 public schools, the Coalition has set an ambitious goal of 25,000 Community Schools by 2025 that will reach over 10,000,000 children and youth.   

We are proud to launch this census effort, which has been informed extensively by input and feedback from Community Schools coordinators, network leaders and others. Through partnership, we will all continue to lead the way as advocates and supporters of Community Schools. Participation in this census marks the beginning of the journey for the field to collectively meet this goal.  The long-term vision is to galvanize a critical mass of public schools that are creating the conditions, capacities, cultures and policies necessary for everyone to succeed.   

As leaders in the field, we are requesting for you to coordinate the effort in your community to respond to the brief census survey found in the link below. The process is straight-forward and takes approximately 5 minutes to complete. We ask that you please do the following: 

·        Complete one survey per school 

·        Ensure school-level site coordinators complete the survey for their respective schools 

https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4891157/Community-Schools-Survey

Thank you in advance for your contributions to this effort and your continued partnership and support for the growth of the Community Schools movement. 

Once you complete your survey, tweet about your enthusiasm about the growth of Community Schools using #25K by 2025.