The Rochester city school district is transitioning to community schools across the board by 2028.
For all middle schools, as well as Padilla High School, Wilson High School, and School 7, that process begins next month.
"We want to ensure that every community school has the specific training and professional development through the state — that we have supported as a district — to make sure that they have a community liaison, that they've established their core or anchor partners, and that they are ready to implement community school strategies,” district Chief of Staff Jamie Wilson said at a recent school board meeting. “That's a seven-month process.”
The state Education Department provides support for establishing and maintaining community schools through Technical Assistance Centers.
Community schools work through partnerships with community organizations and use school buildings as hubs for student, family and neighborhood resources. What that looks like can vary. It can include food pantries, before and after school care, adult learning programs, and medical, mental health, and social services.
“What is critically important about this partnership," Superintendent Eric Rosser said, "is a shared vision for how we're going to support one another in our efforts to make sure to guarantee that our children and our families have exactly what they need in order to succeed, not only in the Rochester City School District, but beyond the four walls that we call school.”
There are currently 12 city schools that already use the model. Now, district leaders are looking to expand that to all schools in three cohorts and improve the current practices at schools where community partnerships currently exist.
“Initially, community schools were first established based off of receiverships,” Wilson said. “We want to see that academic support. We want to see that support for student wellness and health, which would include physical and emotional supports, and we also want to see that our family's needs are addressed."
Organizations like the non-profit public policy research group Brookings Institute promote community schools as a means to improve the well-being of students, their families and neighborhoods. That sentiment is backed by the New York State United Teachers,
Critics, like the libertarian think-tank the Independent Institute, argue that community schools are expensive and serve as “teacher union-controlled indoctrination centers.”
A 2020 study published by the think-tank RAND found that over a three-year period community schools in New York City had a positive impact on attendance, and grades — and saw lower rates of disciplinary incidents for middle schoolers but not high schoolers.
“(Researchers) found a positive effect on students’ sense of connectedness to adults and peers for elementary and middle school students, but only for the second year of the study period,” the research brief of the study stated.
