All Blog Posts (57)

Coordinator Spotlight - Dayna Krannawitter

1. Tell us about your community school. 

There is a great partnership at the Arnold Community Learning Center (CLC) between the school, Lincoln Housing Authority as the lead agency, and Lincoln Parks & Recreation as the before- and after-school program service provider. Together, we…

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Added by Jennifer Masutani on January 17, 2017 at 6:00pm — No Comments

#BrightSpot - Homework Diners





Enka Middle School in Asheville, NC hosted their first Homework Diner, bringing together parents, students, volunteers, and school staff over a hot meal while working on homework. 

"This is the first time I have felt real hope for my child at school. I was able to meet with his teachers and it wasn't some huge deal. We just spoke and I feel like I was actually heard. THIS diner is a good thing." 

- Parent attending the first…

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Added by Jennifer Masutani on December 21, 2016 at 8:30am — No Comments

Coordinator Spotlight - Kyle Garrett

1. Tell us about your community school. 

We are in the second year of implementing the community school strategy at Enka Middle School. We are part of the Asheville-Buncombe Middle Grades Network, a collective impact group that includes representatives from two school systems (Asheville City Schools and Buncombe County Schools), four area middle schools, community partners, local universities and others.

This year, we have been working on building on…

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Added by Jennifer Masutani on December 12, 2016 at 8:32pm — No Comments

#BrightSpot - An Alternative to Detention

Welcome to our new blog post series “Community Schools Bright Spot” where we’ll share an inspirational community school win to get you through the week. Have a “Bright Spot” story to…

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Added by Jennifer Masutani on November 29, 2016 at 7:47pm — No Comments

Coordinator Spotlight - Erin Velez

Coordinator Spotlight

Name: Erin Velez

School: Rosa Parks Elementary

Location: Tulsa, OK

Grades: PK-5 / 850 Students / 95% FRL

Years as…

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Added by Jennifer Masutani on November 14, 2016 at 6:32pm — 2 Comments

More than resources, more than partnerships...it's about your Coordinator voice!

Our community school’s “stamp” system is genius. Red stamps, green stamps, a left stamp vs. a right stamp, a signature on the top, a signature on the bottom, parent signatures, teacher signatures. It all means something. It’s a fantastic parent-school communication tool. It covers everything from attendance to homework completion to GPA to how long a student has to stay after school and more. A six page document condenses into a tiny font front/back explanation that students go over with…

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Added by Jennie Carey on August 26, 2015 at 8:13pm — 1 Comment

What Drives Your Work?

Good morning Coordinators Network.

I am  working with our initiative around streamlining the way we operate. The  model we use in Hartford is based on the Children's Aid Society in NYC  where each lead agency director/coordinator…

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Added by Damion J. Morgan on May 6, 2015 at 9:35am — No Comments

Gangs, Suicide, Shootings, Hunger: How Can We Ever Be Enough?

It didn’t make sense to me until 2008. There was a shooting at a church in Kentucky. In a sermon months later, my minister challenged us to consider empathy in such a cruel moment, when someone was such a monster in a community.

Empathize with a shooter?

How about empathize with that feeling of not belonging, of not understanding, of not feeling safe, of feeling ostracized? While I couldn’t condone shooting because of any of these feelings, I could feel sadness for the person,…

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Added by Jennie Carey on November 12, 2014 at 11:11am — No Comments

Can Community School Coordinators Get Promotions?

I spent hours on the phone with my coordinator colleague Lua last year. I spent hours listening to her tears, seen or unseen, listening to her fatigue, the only thing keeping her in the job being the love of her students and the cause of community schools itself.

In her words, “coordinators are dedicated to a job without much upward mobility or structured forms of recognition/advancement.” And for us, it’s true. Lua has been a coordinator for four years, I have for five. We both have…

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Added by Jennie Carey on August 18, 2014 at 10:43am — 3 Comments

Accountability: Do we really care about each other?

“I mean, let’s be real here. Do I really care about what you do? I see you, I know what field you work in—college access, youth development, environmental justice, mental health—but do I really care about you? Do we really care about each other? Do we even know each other?”

The honesty killed me, and I…

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Added by Jennie Carey on June 12, 2014 at 9:04pm — 2 Comments

Mini Plenary: Dual Capacity-Building Frame for Family-School-Partnerships

The Community Schools National Forum was a roller coaster for me. Though inspired by the vision clinics in schools, youth creating videos, teachers sacrificing it all to reform their schools, and district and state level policies supporting our movement, it was difficult for me not to be a little self conscious.

Am I doing enough? Am I being effective?
With roadmaps in hand from all of these promising, effective…
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Added by Jennie Carey on April 23, 2014 at 3:00pm — 1 Comment

Roberts Academy Gears Up for National Conference!

On the heels of the Cincinnati Public School Fall Showcase, the checklist continues as we prepare for the most exciting upcoming event next April, the National Community Schools Conference coming to Cincinnati. This opportunity brings a myopic focus for my work as the resource coordinator at Roberts Academy, but also invites a deeper concentration of engagement for our partnerships in the school as well as community and business partners, families, students, and staff. The attention to…

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Added by Tracy Power on November 26, 2013 at 4:16pm — No Comments

Bright Spots

The work we do across the country is full of more than its share of challenges. Often we spend more time operating from a deficit perspective as opposed to an asset perspective. Yet we all have a series of what I like to call "bright spots" which are the things we do exceptionally well that aid in achieving our organizational, school/site and initiative goals. The wonderful thing about bright spots is if they are constructed well they can be replicated. So what are your bright spots? What…

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Added by Damion J. Morgan on September 27, 2013 at 8:53pm — 1 Comment

Magic Numbers: Community Schools and the New Federal Promise Neighborhoods Funding

It’s hard to be new. Four years ago, new to California and a new Community School Coordinator, I found myself in a fiercely proud community that wondered who I was and what I thought I was doing at their high school. I didn’t look like many of them, I didn’t sound like them, and even when I played by the rules, I felt like everyone was waiting for me to screw up instead of lending a helping hand. They thought I was just going to be another flavor of the month in education reform. I get it.…

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Added by Jennie Carey on August 21, 2013 at 12:00pm — 2 Comments

The Shared Leadership Question

I was privileged to be able to spend my evening with representatives from the Children's Aid Society today.  And while the discussion had several focal points, there was some extended conversation about what shared leadership means.  

So I ask, what does does shared leadership mean to you?  How does it show up in your practice daily?

Added by Jaymie Lollie on April 17, 2013 at 11:13pm — 3 Comments

I am excited about this network!

Hello Coordinators!

We are so excited to have this site up and running!

To start, I would like to introduce myself.  My name is Annie Bogenschutz and I am one of the Co-chairs for this network.  After nearly a decade of involvement with Cincinnati Public Schools' Community Learning Centers, I am the…

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Added by Annie Bogenschutz on March 13, 2013 at 2:30pm — No Comments

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