Connecting Schools and Youth Development Organizations

Building stronger relationships between schools and youth development organizations has been a priority for the Coalition for Community Schools since our inception. In this newsletter we share important information about how national leaders in these two fields are talking together and working together to improve learning and development our young people. Please share the two documents described here with your constituency and use them to help leaders in these fields cross boundaries

Helping Young People Succeed: Strengthening & Sustaining Relationships Between
Schools and Youth Development Organizations

Ensuring the Success of Children and Youth in American Communities: A Joint Position of the National League of Cities - Institute for Youth, Education and Families, the Learning First Alliance and the National Collaboration For Youth

Welcome to Community Schools Online where we provide updates on developments in the community schools field and the work of the Coalition. Please forward this e-mail to interested partners in your network and to related listservs. If you wish to subscribe to Community Schools Online, register at http://www.communityschools.org/about.html#email. To unsubscribe, send an email to ccs-l-off@lists.iel.org.

"Can't we all just get along? We have to see community-based youth groups and school-based groups as not standing on two sides of the Grand Canyon…Each of us has solutions that other groups need, if we can just find a way to reach out and join hands." Paul Houston, Executive Director of the American Association of School Administrators.

"We are in the same business - making sure that young people are prepared to be engaged citizens of tomorrow…. We come at issues from different vantage points… but today's meeting gives us the opportunity to write a new chapter… between education and youth development groups." Stewart Smith of Camp Fire USA and chair of the National Collaboration for Youth

These words were spoken at the first ever meeting of leaders of national education and youth development sponsored by IEL, the National Collaboration for Youth and the Coalition for Community Schools. The focus of the meeting was a recent report Community Programs to Promote Youth Development, a landmark analysis by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. In Helping Young People Succeed: Strengthening Sustaining Relationships Between Schools and Youth Development Organizations, the Coalition and its partners have summarized this important dialogue into a resource for school and youth development leaders who want to to learn why and how they can cross boundaries and work together.

The National League of Cities, the Learning First Alliance and the National Collaboration for Youth have issued a joint position statement outlining their agreement on critical steps communities must take to ensure success for America's children and youth.

Building on two recent research-based reports, this statement marks the first time that these organizations representing the nation's mayors, educators, parents and youth service providers have joined forces to demonstrate their agreement on three key issues: What are essential outcomes for youth?; What are key attributes of positive youth settings?; and Why must municipal leaders, social service providers and educators all be accountable for improving results for youth? Moreover, it challenges local communities to define the outcomes they wish for their young people, to use data to measure progress, and to hold themselves publicly accountable for results.

In addition to Community Programs to Promote Youth Development, the joint statement built on Every Child Learning: Safe and Supportive Schools is a consensus report from the Learning First Alliance, a collaboration of the nation's leading education associations.