Evidence supports the use of comprehensive school-site partnerships, such as full-service community schools, to leverage existing resources and provide a structure for families and community members to strengthen the school.

Several strong models of school-community partnership provide a theoretical framework and research base to make the case for the impact of community-based assets that support the whole child.

• The ASCD Whole Child Network; CDC Whole School, Whole Community, and Whole Child Model; and Comer School Development Programs center students in an ecological system of school-family-community partnerships that provide the necessary supports and services for students to thrive.

Research that looks across communities and schools, provides strong evidence that integrated partnerships, including community schools, have been shown to improve academic outcomes, attendance and on-time grade progression, and other developmental outcomes for students of all ages. Even amid the pandemic, schools and systems have opportunities to form and leverage community partnerships.

• Schools and school systems can leverage and repurpose existing funding and relationships to support partnerships that meet the needs of children and families during and after the pandemic. Roaring Fork School District in rural Colorado, for example, shifted its existing parent resource team from providing school-based support into a central team that conducts ongoing outreach to families to identify needs and coordinating support to families with a host of community partners.
• School systems can expand their own capacity in new, critical needs by reaching out to community organizations that have a history providing services. For example, Aurora Public Schools in Colorado, Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Pittsburgh Public Schools, and New York City Department of Education partner with community organizations with a history of serving children and families to host learning hubs for students in remote learning. Hillsborough School District in Florida is partnering with organizations in the local Hispanic community to coordinate communication with families in the community.
• Schools and partners can also seek out new funding sources using a variety of guides and by reviewing new funding opportunities such as the US Department of Education Full-Service Community Schools Grant Program, Promise Neighborhood Program, and other state and local funding sources.

Guides to start and strengthen school-community partnerships can help schools and districts build partnerships that are responsive to local needs and that include family and community members in authentic ways.

• A number of community schools guides are available, as well as a set of standards that represent the best thinking from practitioners in the field.
• Schools and districts can begin developing these intentional partnership strategies during COVID-19 by assessing current partners, and by identifying new and aligned community-based resources. The Community Schools Playbook provides an implementation guide for implementing this evidence-based strategy.
• The Dual-Capacity Framework for Family-School Partnerships is built on research and best practice to help schools tailor their family engagement processes to their local contexts.

Integrated or wraparound services, where schools partner with community organizations to provide students with direct non-academic supports, also show meaningful evidence of success.

Sometimes referred to as integrated student services, wraparound supports provide direct service through partner organizations either at the school site or through a referral process.

• Integrated student services (ISS) provide a wide variety of services, including physical health, mental health, social services, trauma-informed care, and academic support.
• Broadly, the ISS model includes five essential elements to support service delivery: community partnerships, student support coordination, integration into the school setting, needs assessments, and data tracking.

Many of the models with the strongest evidence base use site-based coordinators to build out services for individual students.

• Models such as Communities in Schools use a site-based coordinator to coordinate services for individual students, as well as the whole school.
• City Connects, also using a site-based coordinator, creates an individualized support plan for each student. City Connects has demonstrated improved academic and behavioral outcomes across a variety of measures.

Extended learning time programs provided by community partner groups can be adapted in innovative ways to support students during the pandemic.

A wide variety of afterschool program evaluations across the country demonstrate positive academic and behavioral outcomes for students such as improved attendance and engagement, reduced truancy, and improved behavior during the school day.

• Partners can increase learning opportunities for students.
• The Afterschool Alliance offers resources for schools and partners on how to operate afterschool and other out-of-school-time programs during COVID.

Community partners can work with schools to create “community learning hubs” that support the various opening plans for school districts.

• Specific examples of how communities have created hubs during the pandemic include a partnership between the United Way, a local community foundation, and the Cleveland (OH) Metropolitan School District. Schools can also leverage existing partnerships strategies, like community schools, to support expanded learning opportunities.

Community-based partnerships are able to coordinate their school-level efforts most effectively when supported by systems-level coordinating infrastructure.

A cross-sector systemic approach ensures that system leaders engage in mobilizing the resources of their organizations and align resources to meet the needs of communities and schools by leveraging existing data and state and federal funding.

• StriveTogether is an equity-focused “collective impact” approach that brings systems together to coordinate interventions in order to achieve clearly defined outcomes. The Collective Impact Forum is an online resource and network for those currently engaged in, or who want to start, a coordinated systemic approach to leveraging community-based assets. Stories from Fresno, California, and Adams County, Colorado, describe how StriveTogether network partners refocused their collective impact approach to meet the needs of students, families, and communities during the pandemic.
• This community schools guide, based on feedback from practitioners, helps create a systemic community schools initiative that coordinates resources across multiple sites.

Other promising models for coordinating across individual partners include Children’s Cabinets and Promise Neighborhoods, which bring together school officials, government agencies, and community stakeholders for decision-making across a neighborhood, city, or county.

• By bringing systems-level leaders together, Children’s Cabinets attempt to identify the salient problems and leverage resources to effectively address them. Harvard’s Education Redesign Lab studies Children’s Cabinet approaches, provides support to the field, and has a number of resources for local leaders that specifically address COVID-19 and systemic racism. The Forum for Youth Investment also has a number of ongoing projects and offers technical assistance in this area.
• Focusing on a specific geographic area, Promise Neighborhoods unite community partners around a common set of results.

Community Health Assessments (CHA) are designed to identify key health needs and issues through systematic data collection, including multisector collaborators and stakeholders to address various community challenges.

• The wide array of data collected through CHA is a valuable resource that educational leaders in collaboration with community partners can use to set priorities and develop action plans to address the needs of families and communities. The CHA also includes community-level resources that can guide communities on ways to effectively distribute funds across systems and community partners (e.g., faith-based institutions, nonprofits).
• Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s VUMC CHNA+Implementation Strategies is an example of a CHA that also includes specific implementation strategies and action plans of effective ways to address community needs.
• Organized partnership advocates can press policymakers to provide access to funds for community-based organizations that provide resources and programs for students and families that help close academic and social gaps.