The Community Schools Model: A Blueprint for Oregon

Family and Community Partnership: Restoring Organizational Identity

One of the systemic flaws in the current education system is the erosion of organizational identity. Community schools address this issue through Active Family and Community Engagement, which redefines schools as hubs of collaboration and shared purpose.

By actively involving families and community partners in decision-making, governance, and daily operations, community schools create a shared identity rooted in the values and aspirations of the community they serve. This collective identity provides clarity in organizational purpose and coherence. Families are no longer passive observers but active participants, shaping the school’s vision and contributing to its success.

This engagement also fosters a sense of belonging and connection among students and families. Schools become places where students see their culture, experiences, and values reflected in the curriculum and practices. This alignment builds trust, strengthens relationships, and ensures that schools are not only places of learning but also spaces of support and empowerment.

Collaborative Leadership and Practices: Empowering Systems Thinking

One of the most urgent calls to action in rethinking and rebuilding education is for leaders to understand and navigate the interconnectedness of educational systems. Collaborative Leadership and Practices—the fourth pillar of the Community Schools Model—equip school leaders, teachers, and stakeholders with the tools to rethink and rebuild systems.

This pillar emphasizes shared decision-making, professional learning communities, and leadership development programs. By fostering collaboration among educators, families, and community partners, it ensures that all stakeholders have a clear understanding of the structures and approaches that make a school successful. Leaders are trained to see the system as a whole, understand its component parts, and align efforts to create coherence. Importantly, collaborative leadership empowers those responsible for fixing the system to see and understand it. Leadership teams are equipped to address both the immediate needs of students and the broader systemic challenges that impact education. This systemic perspective is crucial for creating schools that are adaptable, equitable, and sustainable.

Integrated Student Supports: A Unified Approach to Student Success

One of the critical failures of the current education system is its fragmented approach to addressing student needs. Integrated Student Supports—a cornerstone of the Community Schools Model—responds to this crisis by ensuring that all students have access to the academic, social-emotional, and health resources they need to succeed.

These supports align with the call for a redefinition of readiness that goes beyond academic proficiency to include social-emotional well-being and mental and physical health. By integrating services such as mental health counseling, healthcare, and social services directly into schools, the Community Schools Model dismantles barriers to learning. This integrated approach ensures that students are not only ready for academic challenges but also equipped to thrive in all aspects of life.

Moreover, these supports reflect a shared consensus on what it means to prepare students for the complexities of the 21st century. By prioritizing holistic development, the model creates a coherent framework that connects disparate initiatives under a unified vision of readiness.

Expanded and Enhanced Learning Time: Leveraging the Power of the Collective

Traditional educational models often fail to provide the time and resources necessary for meaningful learning experiences. Expanded and Enhanced Learning Time and Opportunities—whether through after-school programs, summer enrichment, additional instructional time, or innovative instructional practices during the school day—address this gap by creating structured, equitable opportunities for students to explore, grow, and excel.

This pillar directly counters the structural incoherence that undermines many schools. By aligning expanded learning opportunities with the school’s purpose and identity, community schools create a seamless system where academic support, enrichment activities, and skill development are interconnected. These opportunities enrich what happens within the school day and beyond by incorporating instructional practices and designs that support the development of 21st-century skills, as defined by the school community’s vision for readiness. These opportunities often emphasize culturally responsive practices, STEM initiatives, experiential learning, place-based and project-based approaches, ensuring that students are engaged and prepared for the demands of a rapidly evolving world.

Through this expanded framework, students gain access to technology, arts, and critical thinking opportunities that are often overlooked in traditional systems. This coherence fosters sustainable success and provides all students—regardless of background—with the tools they need to thrive.

A Holistic Solution to Fix Oregon’s Broken Education System

The Community Schools Model, with its four transformative pillars—Integrated Student Supports, Expanded Learning Time, Active Family and Community Partnership, and Collaborative Leadership Practices—offers a compelling and comprehensive solution to the systemic failures that have long plagued Oregon’s education system. This approach goes beyond addressing symptoms, tackling the root causes of educational inequities and fragmented practices by creating schools that are responsive, equitable, and community-driven.

Grounded in extensive research from the Learning Policy Institute and bolstered by advocacy from the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) and the National Education Association (NEA), the Community Schools Model demonstrates its effectiveness as both a remedy for current challenges and a vision for a better future. By integrating supports, expanding opportunities, fostering active partnerships, and cultivating collaborative leadership, this model lays a foundation for schools that are adaptable, inclusive, and fully equipped to meet the diverse needs of Oregon’s students.

What sets the Community Schools Model apart is its scalability and adaptability, proving its effectiveness in both large, urban districts and smaller, rural and remote communities. In urban settings, the model provides a framework to coordinate complex systems and address the diverse needs of large student populations. In rural and remote areas, it builds resilience and innovation by leveraging local partnerships, maximizing limited resources, and tailoring solutions to the unique characteristics of smaller communities. This dual capacity makes the model a unifying force across Oregon’s varied educational landscape.

Adopting this approach in Oregon would:

• Engage families and communities as active partners, fostering collaboration, clarity, and belonging.
• Redefine readiness by addressing the whole child, ensuring students are academically prepared, socially and emotionally supported, and equipped for 21st-century challenges.
• Restore organizational identity by rooting schools in the shared values, aspirations, and strengths of their communities.
• Rebuild structural coherence by aligning policies, practices, and opportunities around a unified vision of success.
• Empower leadership to understand and rebuild systems with a focus on serving every student well, engagement, and sustainability.

By prioritizing every student, coherence, and holistic development, the Community Schools Model is uniquely positioned to transform education in Oregon. Whether strengthening infrastructure in large districts or unlocking potential in rural and remote schools, this model delivers the tools needed to create thriving, connected, and innovative learning environments statewide. The time to embrace this transformative approach is now.

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