Community Schools: Partnerships for Excellence — Coalition for Community Schools

This resource defines the concept of a community school and discusses program areas found in a community school, the positive results achieved in existing community schools, and ways to finance a community school. It also highlights nine successful community school programs, including elementary, middle, and high schools.

Building More Effective Community Schools — Paul T. Hill & Christine Campbell

This report describes why community schools are important, addresses the initial questions and concerns in creating community schools, explains promising approaches, and concludes with a list of resources to help organizations build more effective community schools.

Doing What Matters: The Bridges to Success Strategy for Building Community Schools — Bridges to Success

This report is divided into three parts, the first covering community schools philosophy, the history of BTS, primary strategies for school community collaboration, core features of BTS, and examples of system-wide partnerships; the second covering adaptation and replication of BTS, governance, planning, staffing, and evaluation; the third covering long term sustainability and expansion.

How Community Schools Make a Difference — Martin J. Blank

This provides an explanation of what community schools are, the importance of partnerships and how these partnerships are at the core of community schools, organized around a common goal: to help students learn and succeed and to strengthen families and communities.

Making the Difference: Research and Practice in Community Schools — Martin J. Blank, Atelia Melaville, & Bela P. Shah

This report, released by the Coalition for Community Schools, synthesizes research from the fields of health, mental health, youth development, family and community engagement and community building and demonstrates the connection to student learning. Based on the research, it presents five conditions for learning that need to be in place for children to succeed at high levels. It features evaluation data from 20 different community school initiatives and synthesis of their combined results. By integrating existing community resources with the assets of the school, 15 community schools highlighted in the report produced remarkable improvements in efficiency and results.

A new wave of evidence: The impact of school, family, and community connections on student achievement — A.T. Henderson & K.L. Mapp

This report has an increase in the quantity and quality of research in this area which will only be significant in contributing to school reform if serious attention is paid to the evidence of the positive contributions that partnership programs can make to student achievement and other beneficial outcomes, and then act on what has been learned. It is important because it helps deliver and interpret the evidence. Many policymakers, administrators, and funders ask for evidence that parent involvement helps student achievement, including test scores. Many who ask the question are frustrated with the vague and sometimes confusing answers they get.

Community Schools: Educators and Community Sharing Responsibility for Student Learning — Martin J. Blank & Bela P. Shah

This report looks at what the research tells us about how community schools help young people to succeed. According to the Coalition for Community Schools, which reviewed research across multiple disciplines — education, health, mental health, youth development, family support, family involvement, and community development — effective schools focus on addressing five specific conditions for learning.

Education and Community Building - Connecting Two Worlds — Jeanne Jehl, Martin J. Blank & Barbara McCloud

This report helps dedicated educators and community individuals understand and respect the assets and talents that each brings to the goal of improving student learning.

Schools Uniting Neighborhoods: Successful Collaboration in an Environment of Constant Change — The SUN Initiative

This report focuses on the "high level of collaboration across organizational boundaries that has allowed the SUN Initiative to thrive in an environment of constant change." It discusses the role of core initiative staff, technical assistance, political champions, staff, parents, students, volunteers, and agency partners.

Children's Aid Society
Coalition for Community Schools
Communities in Schools

CISS was established in 1991 with the intent of extending and strengthening the range and quality of services provided in schools by providing interdisciplinary, continuing education to practitioners through workshops, conferences, peer supervision groups, and publications.

The following CISS publications are available in the Roundtable resource library:

Working Together: Exploring Collaborative School Services and Interprofessional Training Programs (1997)

A two-part report considering specific challenges confronting those integrating services for children into schools; a variety of case examples illustrate the broad issues discussed.

Supports for Success: School-Based Programs Fostering Growth and Development for Children and Families in Boston and Cambridge (1999)

A report on the January 1999 conference, focusing on fostering resilience in children and developing effective preventive programs for schools.

Full Service Schools: New Practices and Policies for Children, Youth, and Families (1999)

A report on the March 1999 Full Service Schools conference, focusing on the conference themes of Transformation and What Are We Learning?

Building Strong Full Service and Community Schools (2000)

A report on the May 2000 Full Service Schools conference, focusing on the conference themes of practice, policy, and training.

Building Strong Full Service and Community Schools: Leadership and Collaboration (2001)

A report on the March 2001 Full Service Schools conference, focusing on the conference themes of leadership and collaboration.

Nurturing Strong Full Service Schools: Building Bridges to the Community (2002)

A report on the May 2002 Full Service Schools conference, focusing on the conference themes of bridge building between schools and communities; the report also summarizes the five year series of Full Service Schools conferences.

Boston Excels: A Brief Overview — The Home for Little Wanderers

Boston Excels was Boston Children Institute's education reform initiative collaborating with BPS to make the larger child welfare system more effective in its effort to serve children. This report provides an overview of the philosophy of the program, its main components, evaluation and dissemination, and the Excel outcomes.

Community School Models — Laura Samberg & Melyssa Sheeran

This booklet contains 26 profiles of community schools and describes ways in which different community schools and states are approaching the development of community schools.

Boston Connects is a school-community-university partnership linking the Cluster Five Boston Public Elementary Schools, the YMCA and other community partners, and Boston College to coordinate resources to serve over 3,200 schoolchildren and families.

Learning Together: A Look at 20 School-Community Initiatives — Atelia Melaville

This report identifies the major types, purposes, and strategies of a national cross-section of twenty school-community initiatives, and explores the dynamics of implementing, sustaining and expanding these initiatives across several key dimensions, including governance, site coordination and staffing, financing, and accountability.