America has two kinds of schools: the first are well-equipped private and suburban public institutions or magnet/charter schools with inviting facilities where kids feel at home, feel known, and can grow in a nurturing environment. Having invested in their infrastructure, these “beacon” schools have a vested interest in staying open long after the school day is over as well as during the summer, providing adults and kids with opportunities for classes, camps, meeting-places, performance venues, athletics…lifelong learning.
The second kind of school is the quintessential urban public school in need, in need of everything from pencils, books, paper, Kleenex, to donated musical instruments and computers. Everything in these “at risk” schools is hand to mouth, and unsurprisingly, these schools have little or no life after school because they have few or no resources to engage or enrich their surrounding community.
Our audacious idea is to take this idea of school as community hub that the private school world has already proved viable (and even profitable) and import it into the at-risk, impoverished communities that surround our urban schools. Reliably, we lament the lack of after school or summer opportunities for kids at risk, the rec centers that are closed or under wraps. But it really doesn’t have to be a zero sum game of either providing rec centers or improving schools, or a choice between community gardens vs. schools, or community libraries vs. schools. The school buildings are here, yet only in use for a woefully narrow portion of a day or a year, often without any library or art, or music, or athletics at all. At heart, any investment in the infrastructure of schools should audaciously be seen as a fundamental, far-reaching investment in the health—physical and intellectual—of every individual in that surrounding community.
If every school had a fitness center, then who wouldn’t want to use it in the evenings, weekends, and during the summer? If every school had a garden, then kids, seniors, and out of work adults could grow more during the summer months, when “school is over and out” than they ever could during the school year. If school seemed like a beacon, open and lit up, then wouldn’t people want to be there, and want to invest?
As the founder and the creative consultant of Bmorefit, which trains older, at risk youth to become fitness trainers and ambassadors of healthy choices, we envision a place where savvy, energized Bmorefit graduates can make core changes in their communities. We envision a place for these formerly at risk youth to become change agents with jobs that are meaningful and sustainable. When a young person graduates from Bmorefit, all they need to create fitness opportunities in their community is a room, some mats and balls, and a boom box. We hope they can return to their urban communities—to the very schools where they didn’t succeed—to be ambassadors who know the basics of nutrition, healthy choices, and the importance of exercising safely to build up stamina, resilience and self-esteem, from the inside out.
I, personally, love love love this idea…and of course would hope that the fitness centers in the schools would be extended to offer martial arts, yoga, dancing and drumming as a part of the fitness regime for a healthy community.
This idea is truly a part of the wave of the very near future…yes!!! Schools will not be as we see them now. Things will change and the childlren, teachers and parents will be happy and very glad to come.
YES! Let’s open up these buildings where community people of all ages can congregate for useful purposes and getting to know and trust each other. Better here than on street corners. Better here, in a positive, constructive atmosphere, than dark, dead places that foster destructive behaviors.
Problem; our political and school leaders don’t have the will to support this effort.
Solution; Gather such a huge amount of citizen-originated protest that they would not dare vote against it. Remember who pays the salaries of these folks and owns schools. It’s US!
There was a community schools movement in Baltimore, and there are 25 or so funded community schools within BCPSS. Funding is for a community school coordinator at each school. There should more.
Love it. Schools can be fabulous buildings. You can do even more than athletics, libraries and gardens. You can use them to host local markets, performance, public speaking on important issues. Think Piazza. Think town square.
Friends – As Polly has reminded everyone, there was a 500-person Baltimore Coalition for Community Schools and there IS a funded community schools initiative in Baltimore, and the CEO has declared that all Baltimore schools will become community schools… even while the funding is shrinking. As others have said, now what is needed is the will to make this happen across the city. This national movement is about 20 years old (although there are CS examples from much longer ago than that!) and Baltimore used to be in the forefront. Last week in New York, representatives from Baltimore joined a leadership group from across the US (and 4 other countries) to listen to Arne Duncan, Obama’s Secretary of Education, lay out a vision of schools that are not only full of resources for the children (after school, healthcare, community-based education, early childhood) and families (adult ed, workforce development, social supports), but that become the vital centers of active, engaged communities. These leaders then rolled up their sleeves to figure out how to do this systemically, not just in a few “boutique” sites. I hope Baltimore will once again move into innovative and creative leadership of this movement, as our own public and private leaders get with the grassroots – who have wanted this to happen for decades.
There were fully functioning community schools in Boston/Cambridge when I lived there 35 years ago. What happened? Was lack of funding the only issue? I totally support the idea. Who wouldn’t?!
All schools should be open to and engaged with the community around them. Part of the transformation of City Schools now underway is to redefine what “school” means in that way. There is a continuum of what this can look like depending on the school culture and the amount of resources available. We currently have 17 schools that have a full-time coordinator, housed at a local non-profit, who leverage and coordinate a range of partnerships. Their work focuses on attendance, climate and parent engagement and typically have a rich range of offerings after the school day. Another 70 schools have a community-based partner to help with parent engagement. There are 5 Family Institute sites that offer evening programming for parents and kids 2 evenings each week. We’d like to have more of all of these.
On Jon’s general point, the first question is to figure out how to make school buildings open beyond school day (question of both money and who is responsible for what happens). The next question is who can provide good programming at schools across the city –without costing the schools whose budgets are already very tight. We are actively trying to figure out both questions. If anyone has programming they’d like to offer or would like to partner with a school in a serious way, please contact my office at City Schools (Partnerships, Communications, Community Engagement–410 545 1870 or email me msarbanes@bcps.k12.md.us). We will be launching an online partnering process shortly but please contact us directly in meantime.