Introduction

We have invited some practitioners who “do the work” to tell us what they do. Six program areas are covered here: parent involvement, after-school and summer programs, early childhood programs, primary health services, mental health services, and community development. These are the basic components of the community school model developed by The Children’s Aid Society (CAS); most other models include some or all of these activities as well. We have asked our experts from CAS to provide the rationale for what they do in their components, describe a working example, discuss implementation issues and sources of financing for the component, and tell us about the challenges they faced and the lessons they have learned from their experiences. Many of these components require space within the school—a designated area for parents to congregate, rooms for a primary health care clinic, private offices for mental health counseling, and classrooms and gyms for before- and after-school activities. Not every school can meet these space requirements, or at least many schools do not think that they have room for one more activity. I have observed, though, that more space becomes available in direct relationship to how essential the services become. One principal, reluctant to place a school-based clinic in his building, offered one very small room in a dark corner. Yet five years later, a full suite of rooms had been designated the “Health Place” with two examining rooms, a dental office, a meeting room, three private offices, and an attractive waiting room. The principal described the facility as “my clinic” when a newscaster came to do a story on the program. Unquestionably, full-service community schools require delicate negotiations over many issues, especially space. The CAS schools make full use of classrooms for after-school activities and need access to the gymnasium, auditorium, band room, restrooms, cafeteria, and playground. The principal and the community school director must work out the arrangements for the use of facilities and for cleaning and maintaining them. As you will see from these descriptions of the core components, this work is labor intensive. In every aspect of community school work, individual attention to students and their families is paramount.