Community Schools

The underlying theme of much of our proposal is a strong basis in the community schools model, which PPS has already adopted as a strategy. Our model builds the community in a slightly different manner - by asking them to shape the direction of the schools in their region, so they feel bought into the school’s direction and philosophy of education. We create communities that are robust, but not necessarily bound by the proximity of your address to a school building.

Community Engagement

The model drives community engagement by asking them to help establish the thematic focuses and misc other small differentiation points that schools can make for themselves - school direction is a dynamic and organic reaction to community input about the needs and desires of that region. We shape the schools to fit the need of the community around it, and make PPS schools and the community hubs into pillars of the regional community.

Community Schools utilize a liaison to hear out the needs of the students, families, teachers, local businesses and services, etc in the individual school they serve. They ty to make good connections to benefit all of these stakeholders and create a community around our schools, not just a place of education. Our proposal would rely on liaisons in a similar manner, but these liaisons would be more regional associated than tied to a specific school. This way, they can help direct the public to schools that already offer the needed programs, services, etc, as well as coordinate trying to satisfy unmet needs at schools that could use a pick-up in the school selection process to make them more attractive to the region. These liaisons can also be the in-between contact point if you have an issue that is not (or can not be) adequately addressed at your individual school, rather than taking it directly to the board or the administration. They can report overall community input, needs, feedback, etc trends to the leadership regularly so they are both more informed, while also reducing the day to day load on these leaders.

Replicate What Works

We see this community build up around some of our neighborhood schools, but more so around our magnet schools. We need to move away from the inequity of magnets, but we can learn from them in the process. What makes the community seem to be more robust around many of our magnet schools? In some regards, its simply the privilege of more time availability of the parents who applied there. There isn’t much we can do to change that, but a regional choice model would distribute these parents around to more schools than they currently are. The real key difference though, is people are willing to invest in something they believe in. If we empower people to choose the schools that best meet their needs, the likelihood of them being willing to give up more time to be involved and build community increases dramatically.

Common Interests

Community naturally develops around commonality of interests. Kids who connect because they share a love of French, or STEAM, or whatever it may be, encourages parents to get connected and involved with the school and each other. While not all kids will live in as close proximity as the current proposal, our Transportation Plan will at least make it easier to identify which kids in each class are from your neighborhood. This can be a struggle in the current magnet programs, and it can be hard to make connections with families near you with common interests. Our transportation hubs would help to facilitate these community connections.

Anchors of Community

Our schools should be far more than places that we learn to read, multiply, and dissect a pig. We need to structure the district in a way that promotes and encourages our schools to be anchors of the community.