Types
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CCSPP Application Materials Community school foundations Advisory team development Community school coordinator Needs assessment Stakeholder engagement Strategic Partnerships Sustainability District role Wise practices Research, data, & evaluation CS policy and news Small/rural community schools Learning in community schools Integrating student supports Community School Leaders
Coffee and conversation do not equate to transformational family engagement
When asked about their family engagement efforts, many school teams say that they’re putting in the work. But it’s hard to point to evidence of this connection beyond survey results–let alone know how many people took the survey in the first place.
Moving Beyond ‘Checking the Box:’ Taking Data from Compliance to Curiosity
Community school (CS) practitioners and teams that have a curiosity-centered mindset pull data, gather interest holders, and dig deep on questions about what the data is telling them.
You’re never ‘done’ building your community school
When you take a mindset that recognizes the cyclical nature of community school development, then you are truly digging into and doing the (hard) work of sustaining it.
When it comes to your needs assessment, do it yourselves
Your needs assessment isn’t just about the product that you create, but about the process of collaboratively looking at data with your team and engaging in conversation with the people most impacted by community school development.
The letter: Chronic absenteeism, missed connections, and me
Chronic absence and truancy are serious warning signs. But an automated form letter alone, absent a meaningful connection outside of it, is a lost opportunity at best, and alienation at worst.
Don’t just write the grant to write it
CCSPP funding can absolutely set the stage for whole-school transformation, but only if you approach it with an actual plan for transformation.
What we get wrong about Community School Coordinators and the role they play in CS development
Community School Coordinators are the heart of their school communities, and the heart of our movement to rebuild and transform schools. Here's what we get wrong about their roles in our schools and districts.
Community organizing is about more than achieving a win
Community organizing is a mindset – a way of seeing the world. More importantly, it is a set of principles that we can use to totally rebuild and transform our schools.
Our traditional public funding parameters don’t fit rural communities
Right now, our state has no measure that helps us understand how to really support the rich ecosystem of rural communities because the only thing we’re using is a yardstick in a forest. And it’s a problem.
The name of a funder does not a community school make
Community schools are not new; they have taken root across the state long before – and alongside – the CCSPP.
