PHENND Fellows Education Track

PHENND is in the 11th year of an innovative project which seeks to improve and expand the infrastructure for community partnership development across the School District of Philadelphia.

This year PHENND has placed 8 AmeriCorps VISTA members, full-time federally funded volunteers, in high-poverty schools in Philadelphia and in key School District offices to serve as Community Partnership Coordinators. PHENND’s overall goal is to increase the capacity of schools to leverage community partnerships while also helping develop systems and policies that will foster better community partnership development at the District level. With the best practices learned from this program, PHENND is developing a replicable strategy for which there has already been considerable interest from School District leadership to bring to scale.

Some of the Fellows’ activities include convening monthly community partner meetings at the schools in order to facilitate communication between the schools and their partners, as well as among partners, to encourage collaboration. They are facilitating communication to the broader community through the creation and/or improvement of the schools’ websites, newsletters and other social media platforms which are made widely available to the entire school community including community partners, staff, students and their families. They are also meeting with the School Leadership regularly to discuss school needs and then cultivate existing or new partnerships to better address those needs.

The 2024-2025 participating schools are:

• Mastbaum Vocational & Technical High School  (Kensington)
• Parkway Center City Middle College High School (Center City)
• Simon-Gratz High School (Hunting Park)
• Francis Scott Key Elementary School (South Philadelphia)
• YESPhilly Accelerated High School (North Philadelphia)
• The Workshop School (West Philadelphia)

along with VISTAs placed at the following School District offices:

• Office of Strategic Partnerships
• Office of Sustainability

In the news:

• Community Schools: A Dedicated Coordinator – press release from Mayor Kenney about one of our PHENND VISTAs (April 4, 2016)
• Isaiah: Product of a Community School – press release from Mayor Kenney about a student at a PHENND VISTA school (March 23, 2016)
• National Principal of the Year from Philadelphia (October 28, 2015)
• More than Just a School (September 14, 2015)

More resources:

• A complete School-Based Community Partnerships Coordinator Job Description
• A list of Frequently Asked Questions about these positions
• Toolkit: Partnering for Student Success: A Practical Guide to Building Effective School-Based Partnerships
• Evaluation Study: Successful School-Based Partnerships: What Does it Take?
• Video of toolkit and study release event (October 20, 2016)
• Training modules: Facilitator’s Guide for Partnering for Student Success: A Practical Guide to Building Effective School-Based Partnerships
• Leveraging National Service in Your Schools: A Superintendent’s/Principal’s Toolkit to Utilizing National Service Resources (PHENND VISTA project featured on pg 15)

This project is made possible by support from the Corporation for National and Community Service and the School District of Philadelphia.