Community Schools as a Model for Partnerships that Impact Whole Schools: A Reflection from the PHENND Conference

Posted by on March 23, 2013

By Liz Shriver

Speaking with Darlene Kamine, Executive Director of the Community Learning Center Institute in Cincinnati, before the PHENND conference, helped me to articulate that when school districts or other large institutions truly listen to neighborhoods and schools in defining what they need, there is no down side and there are also no short cuts. There is no way to substitute decisions from the top down for authentic community building and assessment of needs–especially for children and families.

Kamine’s speech highlighted for the K-16 community the necessity of seeking mutually beneficial structures for building partnerships. As university partners, Kamine challenged us to think about how to create and replicate seamless connections between universities and schools in order to provide realistic, sustainable and innovative support. A seamless connection happens only when the ongoing mission of each institution is achieved through working together. Kamine also encouraged us to use partnerships to promote the unique qualities of the public schools we support. Not all schools should be alike, even within the public school system. Like Cincinnati, Kamine noted that Philadelphia is a city of small neighborhoods. The needs of each neighborhood are different, therefore the partnerships pursued are not going to look identical.

There are also basic needs that most students and families have, which are typically addressed outside of school.  Service provision can be streamlined by bringing social service partners into schools so that students don’t need to leave school for services such as dental or mental health care. Currently in Philadelphia, Quality Community Health Care Inc. (QCHC) runs three community health clinics at Vaux, Cooke and Meade schools. Unlike CLCs in Cincinnati however, these clinics are not being promoted as assets of the school, nor are they part of a larger structure of partnerships within the school. Whether unique to a school’s agenda or theme or if it meets a basic need, each partnership within a community school should strive to address real needs and work collaboratively to serve the school and surrounding community.

Kamine also emphasized that schools need partnership coordinators on site in order to increase success and stability for partnerships. Without coordination, community partners are at high risk for missed communication, duplication of services to particular children or families and the loss of the opportunity to promote the services offered as a whole. Co-locating health clinics, mental health services and adult community education and K-12 education in the same location, according to the system set up in Cincinnati, makes sense for families and promotes schools as hubs within the neighborhood. Social service providers benefit from more consistent access to many clients, teachers are able to refer students directly to services in the building and counselors can connect families to on-site resources.  In Philadelphia, schools should serve as community resource centers not only to practically address social, economic and health needs but to re-direct the focus of K-12 education from top-down, sweeping changes to community investment and engagement.

In Philadelphia, if schools are going to become community hubs instead of buildings for educating children in traditional classrooms from 8:00AM-3:00PM, universities have to be involved. Philadelphia has the nation’s largest per capita concentration of higher education institutions. These institutions have world-class hospitals, labs and research facilities, libraries, museums and sports arenas all of which are supported by the labor of Philadelphia residents. Amid ongoing public school closures in Philadelphia, most major universities are building and have growing access to internationally renowned resources and state of the art housing, and are redesigning Philadelphia’s urban landscape. Though universities have a strong history of creating innovative programs to support the K-12 schools in their surrounding neighborhoods, we still have a long way to go in providing increased access to resources and educational opportunities for all Philadelphia residents.

As PHENND members we all understand that supporting our geographic community should be central to the mission of our higher education institutions. It can be challenging for Universities to support the ever changing landscape of K-12 Education. However, young people (k-16) have the right to be rooted in their communities, be able to walk into schools and community centers and playgrounds and to know parents, teachers and students. Over the past four months Philadelphians have fought extremely hard to make their voices heard regarding what is important to creating equity in public schools. Access to high quality programs and resources, offered through all sectors of colleges and universities, is one step in that direction.

Ms. Kamine shared an article with me, which highlights how partnerships address student barriers through the community schools model: Cincinnati Community Schools. This article highlights how this model works in Cincinnati. We have to decide what we can do in Philadelphia to establish unique services and programs not only at selective schools but at the  neighborhood schools, which are next door to us. Community members know what is needed to support their neighborhoods. As representatives of universities we should not strive to build new, innovative models of education and implement them “in the community”, we need to listen and respond and let innovation come from this.

There are many examples of how this is already being done in Philadelphia which will be highlighted in our next K-16 Newsletter!