The School as Community Hub: Beyond Education's Iron Cage
The summer issue of Our Schools/Our Selves, titled The School as Community Hub: Beyond Education’s Iron Cage, is edited by David Clandfield and George Martell.
At a time when neighbourhood schools are threatened with closure, this issue provides an invaluable and thoughtful exploration of community schools--the good, the bad, and the ugly--across various Canadian provinces and in a number of countries.
Saskatchewan Communmity Schools Association
The Saskatchewan Community Schools Association has raised a number of concerns related to community involvement in community schools. The minutes below contain some of the questions they have raised with the Ministry, and the responses. The SCSA concerns itself directly with community school-related issues. It is not the same as the Sask Association of School Councils.
Minutes of In-service Meeting Oct. 2009 (pdf)
Community Schools - Background and Framework
The First Nations and Metis Education office of the Ministry of Education maintains this website on community education. It provides historical background and links to policy and research documents.
Provincial Policy Document
Communities of Hope lays out the policy framework for schools and school divisions to follow.
Community Schools in Saskatchewan - A Research Project
Excerpt:
Because the most important goal of the school is academic achievement, educators tend to value family and community connections that support this goal, sometimes at the expense of family or community goals. Numerous researchers agree that school-centred definitions do not fully express the range of connections that can and do exist. Moreover, the emphasis on school-centred definitions of school-family-community connections create a significant power imbalance, because schools are usually supported “by powerful and stable institutional structures that support the school’s definition of the roles parents and community members play” (SEDL, 2002).
Report to the Metis Sport and Culture Council and the Ministry of Education (pdf)
Community school funding
Did you know? Although the community school model has been extended to all Saskatchewan schools, if your school is a "designated community school," it receives extra funding from the province. School divisions/districts may apply for the funds, for schools that serve school communities facing extra challenges, such as low income neighbourhoods, or higher than average rates of single parent families. There are 98 designated community schools in Saskatchewan. They receive:
$105,200 elementary school
$125,000 secondary school
$127,000 K-12 school
Plus
$240 for every student over an enrolment of 200 in an elementary school
$80 per every student over an enrolment of 400 in a highschool
K-12 schools get the same breakdown, according to grade.
For example:
A designated elementary community school of 300 students receives:
$105,200 base rate
$24,000 for the extra enrolment
$129,200 total.
In exchange, the schools are expected to follow the guidelines and principals laid out in the province’s community school policy framework, Building Communities of Hope. If your school is one of the funding recipients, you should be receiving enhanced community-based programming, added staffing support, a nutrition program and extra effort to promote community engagement, including community participation in decision-making.
To find out how our schools are funded, download the Funding Policy Manual. To find out if your school receives extra funds, look for it in the Community School Directory.
Community engagement
This Master's thesis looks at the issue of community engagement at two Saskatchewan community schools. It provides a good historical overview of the development of community schools in Saskatchewan.
Involvement to engagement (pdf)
Community inclusion
This Master's thesis looks at the paradox of mandating inclusion at community schools, and suggests genuine community participation remains low because of persistent colonial approaches and attitudes.
Mandating Inclusion: The Paradox of Community School in Saskatchewan (pdf)
Maintaining Excellence While Managing Transitions
This article provides a look at the Comer School Development Program in action.
Summary:
In a national education climate where change is the only constant, Norman S.Weir Elementary School in Paterson, NJ has maintained and expanded the reform efforts that have resulted in striking academic achievement and improved school climate. Despite changes in administration and staffing, a highly professional and committed staff has continued the implementation of the Comer School Development Program and sustainedWeir as an outstanding intellectual and social development learning community.
Full Article - Norman S Weir School (pdf)
Community-based highschools
This research report examines two U.S. Latino community-based small high schools— the Dr Pedro Albizu Campos High School (PACHS) and El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice (El Puente). The findings suggest that these schools are successful because they foment a
culture of high academic expectations for their students, value high-quality interpersonal relationships between students and teachers, and privilege the funds of knowledge that students and their respective communities bring to school. Based on these findings, a theory of critical care emerges that embodies these necessary conditions if small high schools created for and by communities of color are to succeed.
Coalition for Community Schools
The US-based Coalition for Community Schools hosts a well-stocked web site that includes fact sheets, evaluation tools and research papers on community school initiatives across the United States.
Youth take the lead
In fall 2002, after years of organizing efforts to reduce overcrowding and improve the quality of education in John F. Kennedy, Walton, and Clinton High Schools, young people in the northwest Bronx, N.Y., united to create their own high school.
Youth Take Lead in Highschool Reform (pdf)
Neighbourhood organizes small school - with beautiful results
El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice in Brooklyn, New York, is an example of how education and community organizing can both serve the needs of a neighborhood. The academy, located in the Williamsburg neighborhood, serves 160 students, 80 percent of whom are Latino. Despite the fact that 59 percent of Williamsburg's kids live below the poverty line and 90 percent of El Puente's students are eligible for free and reduced-price school lunches, 80 percent of them graduated in four years in 2001.
Chicago parents demand respect for community voices
During the night and on into the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004, a determined band of Chicago Public School (CPS) parents and community activists camped at the front door of school board headquarters. Some 300 gathered to protest a plan to close small inner city schools and replace them with destination ‘Renaissance’ schools. Central to the parents’ demands was a call for more, not less, community voice in decision-making.