Full-Service Community School Model - Essay Example

? Community School Model COMMUNITY SCHOOL MODEL Community schools are a place where partnerships offer opportunities, support, andservices, which improve the learning of the student, strengthening of families, and offering of various services. They transform public schools in the traditional sense to partnerships that seek excellence by collaborating with various stakeholders like families, educators, and organizations for youth development. Full Service Community Schools, or FSCS, is a community school model that is focused on community and school partnerships. It involves the integration between community development, social and health services, family support, youth development, and academics. These schools’ organization is based on aiding students in learning, strengthening communities and families and succeeding. They also act as community centres for the provision of services catering for student learners and erection of bridges connecting communities, families, and schools. Not only do these schools provide an environment for the promotion of academic excellence, but they also provide services in mental health, physical health, and social services within the campus. As a result, the schools emerge as community hubs, which act as one-stop places for the provision of diverse needs that help the child achieve the best outcome possible. This paper seeks to describe the Full Service Community Schools and discuss its suitability for post-secondary settings. There are assumptions that schools are only meant for the service of delivering academic skills and that the most effective way of developing a young person into capable and competent adult is by academic methods. However, it is also important to develop the youth emotionally and socially into capable and competent adults who are ready to be integrated into the workforce and be functional informed citizens (Cummings, 2011). The main ideal behind full service schools is that youths are best served when all concerned adults are brought together centrally. This facilitates the collaboration and communication of these select adults to cater for the youth’s needs in the development. The FSCS model has its basis in youth development research, after-school fields, and education. FSCSs are schools that have social service, wellness, behavioural health, enrichment, and academic components (Cummings, 2011). They open way past the regular school hours and their target markets for services and programs include community members, families, and parents. The model can be implemented with the help of a partnership with local non-profit organizations. Through this, the school becomes a local hub for growth of relationships between organizations dealing with youth development, volunteers, students, families, and local businesses. Of special importance are the after-school enrichment and academic programs (Cummings, 2011). Participation in after-school programs develop youths positively by bettering school attendance, improving schoolwork attitudes, higher college aspirations, improved work habits and interpersonal skills, reduction in rates of dropout, and improved grades. Youths spend most of their time in school buildings and thus everything the student needs should be provided, at least in part, by the school (Dryfoos & Maguire, 2007). It allows parents the freedom not to re-arrange work schedules to care for the child, like taking them to a dentist, since these professionals are made available to the school. Family or individual health services for mental health are made available in the school. Most FSCS schools have a parent or family rooms where guardians or parents can talk freely and informally. In these classes, information on the insurance application, enrolment in classes for parent education, and participation in other adult enrichment activities is availed to the parents. Full Service Community Schools are built and designed on five conditions identified by the coalition for community schools aimed at creating an environment for effective learning (Dryfoos & Maguire, 2007). These are: Partnership between schools and communities that are meant to ensure respectful, supportive, and safe learning environments that enable students to connect to the wider community. School staff, families, and parents have relationships that have their basis in mutual respect. Basic needs of families and young people are met by these schools. Students become engaged in learning after, during, and before school wherever they may be. This program is characterized by qualified teachers, challenging courses, and high expectations. Full Service Community Schools provide a variety of services and components tied to the above learning conditions (Dryfoos & Maguire, 2007). One of this is family resource centres. Services aimed at parents, for example, literacy, parenting education, and employment, which are offered by FSCS. Another is Youth development programs, which include services, aimed at pre-employment, recreation and sports, counselling against substance abuse, mentoring, and community service education. Case management is yet another service offered, which includes outside agencies that could work together with local businesses to service schools in opportunities such as; community service, employment, and career counselling services, after-school programs, and mentoring. Referrals are another service offered that links centres for family resource and school-based centres for health, which ensures that the needs of families and students are satiated. Yet another component of FSCS is after-school programs, which are vital for school effectiveness via provision of non-academic and academic support for students (Dryfoos & Maguire, 2007). Finally, they also offer primary health care clinics which are operated by external health agencies in buildings within the school and which provide health education, dental examinations, emergency care, and counselling aimed at mental health. In order to be successful, students will probably need training and education beyond diplomas in high school. Students who were attending programs in FSCS took part in a survey regarding their future expectations after graduating form high school and enrolment and completion of post-secondary education (Hiatt-Michael, 2007). Response of Students as to Whether They Will Go To College Grade level Very sure Mostly sure Not really sure Not at all sure Elementary school 66.2% 26.6% 6.5% 0.7% Middle school 79.5% 17.0% 1.1% 2.3% High school 79.6% 12.7% 6.4% 1.3% (Hiatt-Michael, 2007) Student groups revealed that the increase in post secondary education interest, in high school, could be put down to academic support and information dealing with opportunities in post secondary education given in FSCS (Hiatt-Michael, 2007). These schools support students in fulfilling requirements for graduation, informing students on opportunities about post secondary education, while college tutors act as role models who encourage them to pursue post-secondary education (Kronick, 2007). According to Jason Doughty, there needs to be more emphasis on utilization of data to come to instructional decisions in community school collaborations (Kronick, 2007). This role should be initiated by principals and should be used to evaluate progress of students via post and pre-tests, which should go hand in hand with the benchmark analysis put together by the administration. Via data that are gotten from the various assessment tests, the administration could determine the trends of various students groups. Jason makes a pitch for more collaborative roles of leadership for principal leadership. This would include teachers and parents with the principal giving directions, but also welcoming feedback. This paper has essentially described the Full Service Community Schools and discussed its suitability for post-secondary settings. References Cummings C. ( 2011). Beyond the School Gates. New Delhi: Taylor & Francis. Dryfoos G, & Maguire S. (2007). Inside full-service community schools. Thousand Oaks, CA : : Corwin Press. Hiatt-Michael D. B. (2007). Promising practices to connect schools with the community. Greenwich, Conn. : : Information Age Pub. Kronick R. F. ( 2005). Full service community schools . Springfield (Ill.) :: C. C. Thomas, cop. Read More