Looking to the Future
It may seem strange in a chaotic political period to say that the community school movement is alive, well, and growing. Yet such chaos can give rise to collaborative concepts. Out of adversity comes action, and that action is directed toward helping children succeed in an increasingly difficult environment of higher poverty levels, less health insurance, failing schools, more mental health problems, and a widening gap between social classes and races. It is not a pretty picture, but it is a challenging one. The Children’s Aid Society (CAS) is moving forward with its commitment to community schools. Although we thought we would stop at 10 school sites in New York City, during the 2003–2004 academic year we initiated three more—two in the Bronx and one on Staten Island. Our Technical Assistance Center is in great demand, hosting more than 600 visits in 2003 and responding to more than 500 requests for technical assistance. Also in 2003 we convened representatives from more than 60 of the national and international adaptation sites for a three-day practicum—a training and networking session at which we heard testimonials to success and stories about challenges. Many of the original adaptation sites have moved from one dynamic community school to a cluster of schools within their neighborhoods or districts. And some of these original adaptation sites have matured to the point of providing guidance to other schools that want to emulate their success. There are now more than 200 adaptation sites—community schools based on the CAS model—in the United States and other countries. We are often asked, “Just how many community schools are there in this country?” We have a reasonable census of CAS sites (13) and adaptations (215), but that is only the beginning of a count. The question is difficult to answer because there are so many versions of other models and so many schools without any of these components that nevertheless call themselves “community schools.” We have tried to construct a continuum along which schools can measure themselves.