Coalition for Community Schools Publications

Community & Family Engagement: Principals Share What Works. (November 2006) Martin J. Blank, Amy C. Berg, and Atelia Melaville. Principals are increasingly turning to the community to help them engage families, mobilize and share resources and help students meet academic standards, and this paper is driven by the experiences of such principals. It identifies six keys to community engagement that help school leaders enlist families, staff, partners and the larger community in the life of the school—and strengthen the school’s relationship with the community. In exploring these keys, principals were asked why community engagement matters, what makes doing this work hard and what makes it work. Copies of the report are available at the Coalition for Community Schools’ Web site.

A Handbook for State Policy Leaders - Community Schools: Improving Student Learning/ Strengthening Schools, Families, and Communities: This report is a primer to help guide state policymakers - governors, state legislators, chief state school officers, and leaders of other state agencies - through the vision of community schools. It describes specific actions that leaders can take to "grow" community schools in their states. The handbook also is useful to local elected officials and local decision makers as well. Copies of the full report and executive summary are available free of charge by contacting ccs@iel.org.

Helping Young People Succeed: Strengthening Sustaining Relationships Between Schools and Youth Development Organizations: This report is the result of the March 2002 Youth Development and Education Leaders Forum in which K-12 education and youth development organizations gathered together, for the first time, to begin a conversation focused on how to re-establish strong links between schools and communities. The Institute for Educational Leadership, the National Collaboration for Youth and the Coalition for Community Schools came together to begin discussing about how youth development organizations and educators can work together to improve student achievement. The sponsors of the forum, have summarized this important dialogue into a resource for school and youth development leaders who want to to learn why they should and how they can cross boundaries and work together. To obtain a free copy of the report, contact ccs@iel.org

Partnerships for Excellence: This resource presents the Coalition's vision of a community school, describes the common principles shared by various community school models and offers profiles of nine community schools moving toward that vision and how they are improving the conditions for learning. Schools include: four elementary, two middle, two high schools, and one preK-12 community school. To obtain a free copy, contact ccs@iel.org

Education and Community Building: This report explores how community builders and education leaders can work together more effectively, especially in urban areas. Drawing from interviews between schools and community building organizations, it examines the issues and potential inherent in closer relationships between schools and community building organizations. To obtain a copy: contact, ccs@iel.org

List of other publications