Full-service Community Schools Research Articles

A Whole Child Approach: Amplifying Students' Voices in a Full-Service Community High School

A Whole Child Approach:Amplifying Students' Voices in a Full-Service Community High School Mavis Sanders1 and Claudia Galindo The Whole Child Approach (WCA) provides a framework for advancing the social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development and well-being of students by ensuring they are supported, healthy, safe, and academically challenged (Slade & Griffith, 2013). Full-service community schools (FSCSs) are focused on creating educational environments that holistically respond to students' needs. These schools are characterized by four pillars of practice—extended learning opportunities, integrated service provision, family and community partnerships, and collaborative leadership and decision making (Oakes et al., 2017). Thus, FSCSs embody the WCA and have the potential to transform the education of poor students, especially poor students of color. Several studies have investigated the perceptions and experiences of a variety of key stakeholders involved in the FSCS strategy. These stakeholders include principals (e.g., FitzGerald & Quiñones, 2019; Richardson, 2009; Sanders, 2018; Valli et al., 2014); community school coordinators (CSCs) (FitzGerald & Quiñones, 2018; Mayger & Hochbein, 2019; Sanders, et al., 2019); teachers (Daniel et al., 2019; Galindo & Sanders, 2021; Sanders & Galindo, 2020; Sanders, et al., 2018); and district and community leaders (Adams, 2019; Medina et al., 2019; McKinney de Royston & Madkins, 2019). However, no studies to date have examined students' perceptions of FSCSs and the impact of this reform strategy on their educational experiences. Recognizing the importance of elevating students' voices in research on schooling and educational reform (Howard, 2002; Kirshner & Pozzoboni, 2011; Mitra, 2008; Yonezawa & Jones, 2006), this article seeks to fill this gap. It draws on student focus group data collected at Promise High, an award-winning FSC high school in an urban district in the northeastern United States to better understand how participants experienced the FSCS strategy within the broader context of the WCA. Specifically, this study sought to answer the following research questions: 1. How do students at Promise High describe the school's most impactful features? 2. How do students describe areas for improvement at Promise High? 3. How do students' descriptions of Promise High relate to the WCA? [End Page 91] The Full-Service Community School Strategy FSCSs have become internationally recognized as a strategy to provide economically disadvantaged children and youth with more equitable educational opportunities (Cummings et al., 2011; Lawson & Van Veen, 2015; Salm et al, 2016). In the United States, there are currently about 5,000 of these schools serving over 2 million students in over 150 communities (Blank & Villarreal, 2015). Given increased support for school, family, and community partnerships in the current reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Every Child Succeeds, the number of FSCSs is likely to increase over the next several years (Frankl, 2016). While designs and services vary according to the specific and multifaceted needs of their students, families, and communities (Biag & Castrechini, 2016; Dryfoos, 2005), FSCSs generally share four defining features: 1). Expanded learning opportunities to provide engaging, student-centered instruction during school, after school, and in the summer. 2). Health, mental health, social, and other services to address barriers to students' learning and promote child, family, and community well-being. 3). Family and community engagement to provide resources, leadership, advocacy, and support for students' learning, school improvement and community development. 4). Collaborative and cross boundary leadership to ensure inclusive and equitable practices that can be sustained over time (Blank et al., 2003; Oakes et al., 2017). The implementation of FSCSs relies on a network of relationships between and among key stakeholders (Galindo, et al., 2017). Accordingly, several studies have sought to understand the unique roles different stakeholder groups play in these reform sites. For example, several studies have focused on principals as cross boundary leaders in FSCSs. These studies have emphasized the important role principals play in facilitating reform expansion, communication across role groups, and community engagement and collaboration (FitzGerald & Quiñones, 2019; Richardson, 2009; Sanders, 2018; Valli et al., 2014). Studies have also focused on the role and attributes of effective community school coordinators (CSCs). These studies have documented the specific ways in which CSCs assist principals in identifying, vetting, managing, and expanding the partnerships that are critical for successful FSCSs (FitzGerald & Quiñones, 2018; Mayger & Hochbein, 2019; Sanders...

Integrating beyond Content: A Framework for Infusing Elementary STEM-Focused Schools Components into Full-Service Community Schools

Learning through an integrated STEM framework has been shown to provide elementary students with numerous advantages over learning through isolated content instruction. All students, however, do not have access to high quality STEM instruction for reasons such as living in an under resourced community or their elementary school teachers feeling unprepared in STEM. For the purpose broadening STEM participation, this conceptual paper proposes a thoughtful integration of two interdisciplinary yet separate educational initiatives: STEM-focused elementary schools and full-service community schools (FSCS). In this conceptual manuscript, each educational initiative is first described independently. Then an explanation of how the central tenets of STEM-focused elementary schools and FSCS overlap is presented. Resultantly, a proposed model for integrating the two educational initiatives (FSCSeSTEM) is depicted using a rigorous design-based research methodology. This conceptual piece ultimately demonstrates that it seems prudent to consider integrating not only content in elementary schools, but also well-researched and established educational initiatives for the possibility of expanding STEM opportunities for all. FSCSeSTEM is one such attempt at a conceptual model proposed for future research and practice.

Turning Vicious Cycles Into Virtuous Ones: the Potential for Schools to Improve the Life Course

Adolescence is a critical transition period that sets the stage for adulthood and future health outcomes. Marked by key developmental milestones in brain maturation, increasing independence from parents, and greater connections to peers, adolescence is also a time of heightened risk for behavioral health problems, including substance use, violence, delinquency, and mental health issues. High school completion is a significant life course event and a powerful social determinant of health and health disparities. Jessor's Theory of Problem Behavior suggests that adolescent health behaviors and mental health problems are closely tied to poor educational outcomes and peer network formation in a reinforcing feedback loop, or vicious cycle, often leading to school failure, school disengagement, and drop-out. Schools are a novel platform through which vicious cycles can be disrupted and replaced with virtuous ones, simultaneously improving education and health. This article describes the potential for schools to transform health trajectories through interventions creating positive and supportive school climates. In addition, new models such as the Whole School Whole Community Whole Child Model promote whole child well-being, including cognitive, social, emotional, psychological, and physical development. Full-service community schools can serve as a hub coordinating and integrating all available resources to better respond to the needs of children and families. Present in every neighborhood, schools are a way to reach every school-age child and improve their health trajectories, providing an important platform for life course intervention research.

The growing movement to create full-service community schools: A conversation with Mavis Sanders and Claudia Galindo

Claudia Gallindo and Mavis Sanders describe what they’ve learned from their research about how full-service community schools connect with families and communities. These schools acknowledge that students have needs that go beyond that need and attempt to address those needs and serve as a hub for the community. The current movement goes beyond providing services to include community members in their decision making. They discuss examples of what specific schools are doing and some of the challenges they face.

Betwixt and Between Justice and Inaction: Full-Service Community School Principals and Community Equity Literacy

Little research has focused on the extent to which community school principals approach family engagement efforts, specifically from an equity-centered perspective. This study examined how community school principals’ leadership practices exhibited tenets of Community Equity Literacy. Results from interviews with 13 administrators and 19 coordinators from three states highlighted the importance of equity, but participants’ conceptions were often embedded in school-centric paradigms that exhibited surface-level understandings of family and community strengths. Dispositions and skills principals need to forge relationships with families that extend beyond service provisions to create equitable community-centric partnerships inclusive of a broad group of constituents are discussed.

Community schooling for whom? Black families, anti-blackness and resources in community schools

ABSTRACT The philosophy of full-service community schools (FSCS) is increasingly infused into the ethos of schools across the nation in Black and Brown communities with purported goals to engage families and address the multifaceted disparities they experience in schools and communities. Limited research explores the experiences of Black families within contemporary FSCSs. This qualitative critical case study centers the perspectives of parents, district and school staff, and community partners and highlights how the disregard of and inequitable resource access persist for Black families.

Factors promoting academic credit attainment in an urban full-service community school initiative

Students who attend alternative high schools are considered at risk of not graduating. To graduate from high school, students need to obtain the appropriate number of credits. In this study, factors related to the attainment of credit by students in an alternative school during 2015–2019 were examined. Five factors had an effect on the number of credits students in the alternative school earned: the duration of students’ active enrollment, participation in service programs, ongoing participation in service programs, student attendance rate, and home language. However, behavioral referrals, gender, race, ethnicity, and grade level had no effect on credit attainment. Implications for alternative high school policies and practice are also discussed.

It's Just the Wilson Way: Investigating the Extended Impact of an Elementary Full-Service Community School Initiative on Middle School STEM-Related Outcomes

This study investigated the sustained impact from elementary fullservice community school programming on middle school STEM academic outcomes that could lead to greater college and career readiness, as well as increased STEM career options for underserved urban students. Quantitative findings suggest middle school youth who attended an elementary full-service community school performed better on middle school STEM outcomes and were predicted to be more prepared to graduate and enter a STEM-related field than a matched comparison of peers who did not. Qualitative results explain differences. Two meta-inferences, informal facilitation of STEM and sustained fullservice community school impact, frame the discussion.

Unincorporated Health: Understanding Residents’ Perspectives on Factors Impacting Their Health and Emergent Place-Based Solutions

ABSTRACT Increased mortality rates and decreased life expectancy in the United States are associated with rurality, even after adjusting for poverty. In unincorporated rural communities, high population density may compound the negative health impact of the upstream factors associated with rurality, yet little is known about how this context contributes to residents’ health. We conducted nine focus groups with youth and adults from March–July 2017 in two Texas unincorporated rural communities. Using ecosocial theory and applied thematic analysis for focus groups, we investigated social, political, and historical factors that affect health. We identified two primary themes: upstream barriers to community health and K-12 schools as facilitators of community health. K-12 schools, and full-service community schools, in particular, may have an important role in closing the rural-urban health gap, even in the context of structural constraints associated with unincorporated rural status.

Examining academic, non-academic, and college readiness outcomes of urban immigrant and refugee youth (IRY) in full-service community schools

• A full service community school offers services to urban, (IRY) and their families. • IRY had higher GPA than students in the same district not in a community school. • IRY had higher attendance rates and lower behavior incidents than control students. • IRY also had higher college readiness outcomes than control students. • Non-IRY in the community school model performed better on nearly all benchmarks. Despite recent caps to refugees admitted to the US, some states and urban communities continue to support large populations of immigrant and refugee youth (IRY) and their families. IRY often experience academic and non-academic challenges while integrating into new societies. This study focusses on three middle schools in an urban community, one of which has adopted community school practices, meaning they provide wraparound academic, social, health, and immigration services for IRY and their families. This study examines the impact of community school (CS) and refugee center programming on CS middle school students broadly ( n = 1,045) compared to a sample of non-CS middle school students ( n = 2,381) from the same school district. Additionally, this study takes a more narrow look at CS programming impact on IRY student outcomes. Results reveal positive significant differences on academic outcomes variables (GPA, mathematics, science, English, and social studies grades) and non-academic outcome variables (attendance rate and behavior incidents) for students attending the community school, and CS students performed statistically better on all academic indicators of college readiness (overall 8th grade GPA, 8th grade course failures, attendance rate, and behavior incidence). This study contributes to an improved understanding of the pragmatic influence integrated student supports found in a community school setting can have on students, specifically IRY.

Full-Service Community School Intervention: Case Study of Somali Parent-School Engagement Within a Rural Midwestern School District

The purpose of this three-stage qualitative phenomenology case study was to characterize Somali refugee parents’ understanding of their role in school-parent relationships and investigate the impact of a research-based parent involvement intervention model adapted for use with this study. Research questions included: 1) What are Somali refugee parents’ understanding, perceptions, and expectations of school parent involvement; and 2) Did the adapted training intervention, designed to enhance school-parent relationships and parent engagement behaviors among Somali refugee parents, succeed? Following an initial interview stage, Epstein’s School-Family-Community Partnership Model (2019) was adapted and used to design a training intervention that was delivered as a component of the district’s Community School model. The pre-training interview identified that none of twelve parents in the study had attended school in their home country or the United States. The Somali refugee parents reported that their lack of English skills caused difficulty for them to understand school policies, their child’s school progress, and teacher expectations. Coded and themed results from post-training interviews revealed the parent involvement training interventions had resulted in both increased parent engagement knowledge and behaviors. The study verified parent engagement barriers for Faribault Public Schools’ Somali parents, and the engagement trainings provided the study sample group with focused, evidenced-based knowledge, skills, and recommended actions. Recommendations for practice include aligning school-parent involvement activities with a comprehensive, structured approach such as the Epstein model and the thorough identification of parent engagement barriers for the targeted subpopulation.

Community Schools as an Urban School Reform Strategy: Examining Partnerships, Governance, and Sustainability Through the Lens of the Full-Service Community Schools Grant Program

The community school concept has become a popular school reform model that has gained traction in urban school systems. To date, however, few studies have looked across contexts to see how various communities are conceptualizing the reform: the aims that are articulated, the partnerships that are being created, or sustainability plans. In this study, we explore these questions through an analysis of 32 funded proposals from the federal Full-Service Community Schools grant program. We examine the goals, aims, and plans of reformers and ask questions about governance, inclusion, and sustainability, situating our analysis in the policy implementation literature.

Navigating Fragility and Building Resilience: A School–University Partnership to Support the Development of a Full-Service Community School

Background/Context The literature review by Phelps in this special issue highlights the challenges of research–practice partnerships and other forms of insider–outsider collaboration in education. In addition to addressing well-known challenges, this case study article focuses on the full-service community school model as a strategy to address holistic needs of students, families, and staff in poverty-impacted school contexts. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article documents work that was conducted across five years, when a large research university partnered with an urban elementary school to establish a full-service community school. It provides an account of the assets, challenges, and processes that impacted our work, from the planning phase through four years of implementation. It describes efforts around four main areas: academic excellence, extended learning, holistic health and wellness, and family engagement. Research Design This is a participatory case study with university educators and researchers working collaboratively with school professionals, community-based organizations, and families. Data Collection and Analysis Many sources of data were included in our case analysis, including formative and summative student assessments, student attendance, service referrals, and office referrals for behavior. Running records of meetings, documentation of events, presentations, and reports submitted were also included. Interviews with key actors in the project were also collected and analyzed. Conclusions/Recommendations Our partnership experienced some of the major challenges discussed in the literature. Turnover was overwhelmingly the most significant challenge. Student mobility and district boundary changes, new curricular adoptions for mathematics and literacy, new student assessments, new data tracking system, new bell times, and measures to cut transportation costs also impacted the effort. In spite of these challenges, we also experienced important successes. Centering relationships in our work has been an essential part of the success we experienced and is itself a success. At every phase, we remained at the table together, working to build relationships and sharing visions, goals, and practices. This resulted in important changes with stronger systems for tracking and using student data in educational decision making, health and wellness services now available to all students, and a universal social-emotional curriculum now in place. Family engagement and parent leadership are now essential dimensions of the school, with parents of color playing important roles to amplify their own and other parents’ voices. Preservice teachers learned about full-service community schools in situ. We highlight the rich and complex narrative that emerged, which is not simply one of challenge but also one of resilience and strength. Carefully documenting this initiative can contribute to guiding implementation and refinement of a full-service community school model.

Final Thoughts: Working Towards the Sustainability of Full-Service Community Schools

The conclusion highlights key findings from the articles in this special issue and their implications for practice in the field. It also discusses the articles' limitations and directions for future research that will further enhance the literature on and practice of FSCSs.

Sustaining Full-Service Community Schools: Lessons from the Tulsa Area Community Schools Initiative

The purpose of this study was to explore sustainability of social conditions and achievement outcomes in six full-service community schools (FSCSs) in two districts (Tulsa and Union Public Schools) associated with the Tulsa Area Community Schools Initiative (TACSI). Three questions guided the inquiry: How has TACSI changed over the last 9 years? Have the six TACSI FSCSs in Tulsa and Union maintained strong conditions for learning compared to non-TACSI schools? Have the six TACSI FSCSs in Tulsa and Union maintained better achievement outcomes compared to non-TACSI schools? Findings suggest that FSCSs cannot be separated from the larger district context in which they are embedded. Differences in FSCS implementation and outcomes were visible as the TACSI network expanded, as district priorities shifted, and as leadership changed. Implications of these findings for educational reform, generally, and FSCSs, specifically, are discussed.

A Question of Necessity or of Equity? Full-Service Community Schools and the (mis)Education of Black Youth

Public schools in the United States have struggled to determine whether their mandate is simply knowledge transmission or includes the development and well-being of the whole child. Contemporary realities of resegregation and inequality have prompted many districts to embrace this latter notion and consider the Full Service Community Schools (FSCSs) model. In this paper, we examine a school district’s FSCS initiative as implemented at a predominately Black middle school and a racially heterogeneous high school. We ask, what are the characteristics—e.g. structural, pedagogical, relational, discursive—of FSCSs that seek to support Black students’ well-being and academic success? How do Black parents and students experience these FSCSs? Findings illustrate the racialized nuance of FSCS reforms, including the critical role of culturally relevant strategies and the need for an aligned sociopolitical clarity and related set of goals across educational stakeholders in order to create and sustain the success of FSCSs.

A Comparative Analysis of the Impact of a Full-Service Community School on Student Achievement

This article reports the effects of attending an elementary full-service community school (FSCS) on a variety of student academic outcomes in high school. The focal FSCS, Key Elementary, serves students in grades K-5 in a diverse southeastern New York State (NYS) school district. The academic performance of students, born between 1991 and 1996, who attended Key Elementary FSCS is compared with a similar group of students who attended a traditional elementary school in the same district. Overall, students who attended Key Elementary FSCS scored higher on most of the NYS Regents examinations, were more likely to graduate with NYS Advanced Designation high school diplomas, and had higher average cumulative GPAs and SAT I scores than students who attended the comparison school. Students who attended the elementary FSCS also took more AP exams, and were more likely to indicate their intention to enroll in a four-year college. Implications of these findings for future research and practice are discussed.

Introduction: Research for a New Era of Full-Service Community Schools

This introduction provides a brief description of the conceptual underpinnings and defining elements of full-service community schools (FSCSs). It also identifies sources of skepticism about the FSCS strategy. The introduction concludes with an overview of the articles included in this special issue on FSCSs, and their collective significance for addressing the concerns of skeptics and advancing the quality, sustainability, and spread of this comprehensive reform strategy.

Student Attendance: A Persistent Challenge and Leading Indicator for Baltimore’s Community School Strategy

This mixed methods study examines the relationship between full-service community schools (FSCSs) and student attendance in Baltimore City Public Schools. We hypothesize the FSCS strategy promotes student attendance by building meaningful partnerships between families and schools via personal relationships and systematic opportunities for school-based involvement. First, we present information collected from local FSCS stakeholders regarding the impetus for FSCSs in Baltimore. Second, we present data collected during interviews with FSCS coordinators about their approaches to maintaining and improving student attendance, and finally, we examine whether years of implementation relate to attendance using mixed linear regression modeling. The results suggest the FSCS strategy has a positive relationship with attendance over time; however, attendance in schools with high poverty has proved more resistant to FSCS approaches than attendance in more economically advantaged contexts.

Community Engagement Through Partnerships: Lessons Learned from a Decade of Full-service Community School Implementation

Improving performance in an environment often tested by intermingled social problems, including poverty, racial isolation, cultural clashes between teachers and students, and school funding disparities requires authentic, committed family, school, and community partnerships. Using Bryk’s (2010) model for effective and improving schools, our study describes challenges and achievements experienced over a decade of implementing the full-service community school (FSCS) reform in two neighborhoods in Indianapolis, Indiana. We also share lessons about funding, collaborative structures and processes, and organizational responses to change. The study has broad implications for both FSCSs and urban schools with comparable demographics that are working to build effective partnerships to address social problems in lasting ways.