Turning Schools Into Centers for Civic Engagement

Americans are feeling disconnected and confused. We look around and have trouble recognizing our country, our neighbors, and sometimes even our own friends and family. Many of us feel we are treated as “others” by the dominant culture. For many, the 2016 election and the roller coaster we’ve been on for the past year have raised complicated questions about ourselves, about the way we’ve been treating others, and about the future of our country. We are looking for answers. We are looking for help. We are looking for each other.

Authors E.J. Dionne, Norman Ornstein, and Thomas Mann recently published a book to help us through this challenging time, “One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported.” They suggest that we need to recapture our ability to have dialogue, break down our perceptions of the “other,” and develop solutions that are beneficial for all members of society. They write that we need “first responders for reviving community.”

Their first powerful example of this kind of “first responder” is community schools. Using a hyperlocal strategy like community schools, local governments can provide the spaces we need to better understand one another and to lift up our neighbors. In a world fraught with online social media attacks, a growing movement to the extremes, and sheer exhaustion from crisis after crisis, we lack public spaces where we can learn about our fellow citizens and begin a discussion. The authors suggest that community schools are the type of public institution our country needs to lead us and our children into a brighter future.

Community schools are centers of the community, neighborhood hubs where educators, partners, and families unite to help young people succeed. They are also places that have been developing problem-solving muscles: the ability to identify the needs and assets of a particular place, to bring people together to discuss solutions, and to collaborate on making their schools, homes, and neighborhoods better, safer places to live. They tackle hard challenges like poverty, lack of access to health and mental health services, the opportunity gap, and weak civic and family engagement. And they get results.

There are approximately 5,000 community schools, from Oakland to Tulsa, from Chicago to Grand Rapids, from Baltimore to Nashville. Leaders from school districts, higher education, nonprofit organizations, and parent and community organizing groups are working together to create spaces in schools where we can discuss the challenges we face and march forward, together.

Community schools create opportunities for each and every student, students’ families, and their communities. They offer student-centered learning partnerships that create relevant learning experiences that citizens of the future will need. They partner with nonprofits, faith-based institutions, and government agencies to offer health care and other supports students require to be successful. They don’t dictate to families, rather they work together with families who share in ownership of their school, and in turn, build the civic capacity our nation needs.

Community schools are not a “blue” idea or a “red” idea. They are not an urban or a rural idea. They are an American idea that gets to the heart of what we all expect from our public schools: places that are fair and equitable, places where everyone has a chance to succeed, and places that bring our communities together.

They represent a return to John Dewey’s fundamental idea that schools can be social centers of community. Schools can lead our communities by becoming places where citizens debate ideas, socialize with their neighbors, build relationships, and learn new skills for a changing economy.

How receptive might Americans be to the community schools strategy? New polling data from Phi Delta Kappan found that Americans believe schools should provide extra, non-academic services that students need and that they are ready to use public funds to support these services. Ninety-two percent of respondents said it is important that schools offer after-school programs and 87 percent had the same feeling about mental health services in schools. Politicians looking for ways to make schools safer should get behind community schools and the services they provide.

When I talk with people about community schools, regardless of political party, they say, “That’s a common-sense idea.” So common-sense that it can be revolutionary. Americans hope for the best for our children. We believe that schools can provide a future that is fair and full of opportunity for all. It is common sense that schools should be places that unite our communities to provide every child every chance.

Reuben Jacobson is the Deputy Director for the Coalition for Community Schools at the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL). He helps lead an alliance of over 200 partners across sectors who advocate for more high quality community schools.