“National, state and local officials gathered at Madison’s Hawthorne Elementary School Tuesday morning to discuss and advocate for community schools.
Download the Toolkit
We've created a 2021 Coordinators Appreciation Week toolkit filled with resources to help you highlight the amazing Coordinators you know, as well as spread the word about the role they play in growing the Community School movement.
Happy Coordinators Appreciation Week! Here’s a message from Jaymie Lollie, Co-chair of the Coordinators Network:
…and a guest blog post from former Coalition Director Martin Blank:
Check out these headlines sharing more about the success of the Community School model, and the importance of the Coordinator position!
Wisconsin leaders discuss, celebrate community schools model at Hawthorne Elementary
National Education Association president Becky Pringle, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, State Superintendent Jill Underly, Madison Metropolitan School District superintendent Carlton Jenkins, Madison Teachers Inc. president Michael Jones and others held a discussion for half an hour in the Hawthorne gymnasium.
The discussion was closed to the press, but Pringle, Jones and Jenkins spoke to the media after the event.
‘We are looking at using Hawthorne as an example to help us transform our schools all over the country,” Pringle said. “We believe every school should be a community school because it talks about the whole student, serving the needs of faculty meeting those needs, mining the assets of the communities so that when we say ‘every student will succeed,’ we actually mean every student will succeed.'”
How the increasingly popular community schools model is boosting rural America
“‘Rural districts are an often-overlooked part of the complex American education system,’ Bailey noted, which is a point that was also echoed in a 2020 article by New York Times education reporter Erica Green, who wrote that despite the fact that one in seven U.S. students attends school in a rural district, these often geographically large school systems have ‘long been considered the most underfunded and ignored in the country.’
These revelations about rural schools aren’t news to Deanna Hron, a longtime employee of the Deer River, Minnesota, school system, who is well aware of the challenges facing rural students. When she began her career in Deer River in the 1980s, working as an elementary school teacher, she observed that many of her young students showed up to school without their basic needs being met, including essentials such as dental care, food, and reliable transportation.
She soon realized that it wouldn’t be possible to meet all those needs solely within the classroom and did what she could to help students and families access resources within the town of Deer River and Itasca County, its home base.
These days, Hron is largely credited by colleagues with being the life force behind the district’s 2016 adoption of a full-service community schools model. Since then, Deer River students and staffers have had more tools in place through this community schools approach, which prioritizes not only the academic needs of kids but also the social, emotional, and physical well-being of the whole community.”
Community schools in New Mexico provided invaluable services amid pandemic, advocates say
“Through the pandemic, the assistance that the 80 community schools in New Mexico provide became more valuable then ever.
With basic resources such as food, clothing and housing to more complex resources including internet access and adult classes, community schools have made efforts to provide students and families with support in the short term and long term.
Once those basic needs are met, the community can thrive, community school advocates say.”
Other Media:
Kent Service Community Schools (Grand Rapids, Michigan area) staff and Coordinators kicked off Coordinators Appreciation Week on The WGVU Morning Show with Shelley Irwin. Check it out here.
CAW Advocacy
The Coalition worked with Senators Sherrod Brown, Shelly Moore Capito, Chris Van Hollen, and Richard Durbin as well as Representative Judy Chu to pass a resolution designating this week Coordinators Appreciation Week! Read the full Press Release here.
Districts across the country also worked hard to partner with local representatives and policymakers to advocate for Community School Coordinators:
Oakland
Oakland Unified School District helped introduce this City of Oakland’s Mayor’s Proclamation of Community School Manager Week.