142 - A Collaborative Approach to Evaluating a Community School Initiative

Abstract Information: Over 8,000 schools in the U.S. have adopted the community school strategy, which transforms schools into community hubs with expanded learning opportunities, active parent engagement, student wellness services, and shared decision-making. Evidence shows the strategy improves student outcomes, and in 2022 federal funding doubled for community school initiatives. Evaluators have an important role in helping a school tell the story of its progress in becoming a community school. We will describe the strategies we used in our first year of work with our school-based partners at a large, urban public school district. We will share lessons learned during the first phase of evaluating a new community school initiative: conducting a needs and strengths assessment that was multi-site, culturally relevant, and most importantly, highly collaborative. We will highlight strategies we used to empower a team of fifteen school-based stakeholders to design surveys, facilitate focus groups, and collect diverse community input. Our example is relevant to evaluators who are embarking on an evaluation of a community school initiative or anyone working to adapt social research methods to a dynamic and sometimes unpredictable K-12 environment. We will show how needs and strengths assessment is a powerful way to build relationships between people in a school -- a crucial part of starting a community school initiative.

Relevance Statement: Across the United States thousands of K-12 schools, particularly in under-resourced neighborhoods, are adopting a community school strategy to promote student success. This strategy transforms schools into community hubs that partner with local resources to bring together expanded learning opportunities, active parent engagement, and student health and wellness services. Most importantly, parents, school staff, and community stakeholders share in decision-making. Evidence shows the strategy improves student outcomes in attendance, behavior, academics, graduation rates, and reduces racial and economic achievement gaps (Maier et al, 2017). Over 8,000 schools in the U.S. identify as community schools, and opportunities for evaluation are growing; in 2022 Congress and President Biden doubled federal funding for community school initiatives (Quinn & Blank, 2022; National Education Association, n.d.). Evaluators of community school initiatives face complex questions. Community schools is a strategy, not a model. It is customized based on student and community needs, so measures of progress are as varied as those communities. Evaluators have an important role in helping schools identify “what measures say what” about a school’s progress on its way to becoming a community school. We will tell the story of how this looked in the first year of work with our school-based partners at a large, urban public school district. We will describe lessons we learned during the first step of evaluating a new community school initiative: a needs and strengths assessment that was multi-site, culturally relevant, and most importantly, highly collaborative. We will highlight strategies used to involve a team of fifteen school-based stakeholders in collecting diverse input about school needs and strengths. We created a collaborative process of designing survey and focus group protocols based on key questions our partners identified. We built capacity among school staff to lead focus groups and surveys. In addition to the new data collected, we coordinated data review meetings (virtual data placemats) where partners used storytelling to interpret archival school data. Our example will be especially relevant to evaluators who are embarking on an evaluation of a community school initiative, working to adapt social research methods to a dynamic and sometimes unpredictable K-12 environment, and seeking ideas to empower stakeholders in a needs and strengths assessment process. Above all we will show how a needs and strengths assessment is a powerful way to build relationships between people in a school community, which is a crucial part of starting a community school initiative. Sources: National Education Association. (n.d.) Meeting the needs of students with Community Schools. https://www.nea.org/student-success/great-public-schools/community-schools Quinn, J., & Blank, M. J. (2022, November 10). Twenty years, Ten lessons: Community schools as an Equitable School Improvement Strategy. NYU Steinhardt. Retrieved March 19, 2023, from https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter/vue/twenty-years-ten-lessons Anna Maier, Julia Daniel, Jeannie Oakes, and Livia Lam (December 2017). Community Schools as an Effective School Improvement Strategy: A Review of the Evidence. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/media/137/download?inline&file=Community_Schools_Effective_REPORT.pdf