New Funding and Grants for Community Schools
A Community Schools model can provide holistic synergies that reverse cycles of inequity and drive school success!
K12 Ed Grants Update
New Funding and Grants Highlight Increased Interest in Today’s Community School Model
The NEA (National Education Association) says that “community schools are built with the understanding that students often come to the classroom with challenges that impact their ability to learn, explore, and develop to their greatest potential.”
Now the Federal government and many states are authorizing new GRANT FUNDING designated for Community School initiatives. For some grants, those eligible to apply may include not only public schools or school districts, but also charter schools, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals.
In this post, you’ll learn more about Community Schools and about grant opportunities that support planning, implementing, or expanding your own Community School models, services, or programming.
Definitions of Community Schools
The idea of Community Schools goes back nearly a century, and the Community School concept has evolved over many decades.
In this post, we’ll focus on what defines today’s Community School model and offer help and insights for writing an effective Community School grant proposal.
While the Community School model has taken many shapes in response to different historical pressures, there are some common themes that also apply to today’s Community School or Full-Service Community School model:
supporting student learning and achievement in underserved and economically or socially disadvantaged communities
providing social support and enrichment opportunities that are culturally responsive to local community needs and identities
integrating services, partnerships, resources, and programs across the school community in order to engage and empower students, families, and the entire school community
In their publication "What Is A Community School," the Institute for Educational Leadership’s Coalition for Community Schools offers this definition of a Community School:
A community school is both a place and a set of partnerships between the school and other community resources. Its integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development and community engagement leads to improved student learning, stronger families and healthier communities. Community schools offer a personalized curriculum that emphasizes real-world learning and community problem-solving. Schools become centers of the community and are open to everyone – all day, every day, evenings and weekends.
The School-Community Nexus: “Tell me your zip code and I’ll tell you your test scores”...
A core assertion or core reality driving support for Community Schools is the notion that students in communities with more economic advantages typically have access to a range of resources for health and extracurricular learning outside of school that are fully integrated into community life and contribute significantly to successful learning outcomes in school.
This means that external resources–community resources outside the school–inevitably support or contribute to general rates of improved student wellbeing and increased academic achievement in school. And, the lack of such community resources, or other social disadvantages impacting a local community, can likewise contribute to disproportionately low rates of overall academic achievement in school.
In other words, research is confirming what common sense seems to tell us, that schools don’t operate in a vacuum.
Often, school performance indicators and student learning outcomes are not adequately determined by the quality of the programming implemented within the school walls alone. And, even highly effective school or instructional programming may not be fully insulated from external factors impacting school families and the school community.
As the adage goes, “tell me your zip code and I’ll tell you your test scores.” Researchers for the NEA (National Education Association) note that “at present, more than 25 million students in America’s public schools live in under-resourced households, the highest proportion in generations. More and more students are coming to school hungry, many face unstable housing situations or move frequently, and many do not have access to regular pediatric well-visits.”
"Meeting the Needs of Students with Community Schools." National Education Association. Accessed 8/1/2022.
For a long time educators often resigned themselves to the fact that many forces outside the school walls that impacted their students and school were simply beyond the reach of their control.
This objective assessment seemed very intuitive, but over time it became a kind self-fulfilling prophecy which engendered powerlessness rather than visions for new models that would help empower the school community, school families, schools themselves, and even individual students.
For example, in the case of more disadvantaged or underrepresented communities, external factors impacting the community would often thwart otherwise constructive efforts in the school aimed at addressing school climate, student learning, graduation rates, and academic inequities…For educators, this apparent impact from external forces could also slowly chip away at their ideals and aspirations and turn hoped for gratification into repeated frustration—harming staff morale and accelerating the school’s downward cycle…
The Community Schools model is rooted in the notion that educators and legislators need to stop taking these kinds of community factors for granted and address them proactively because, in fact, they have an undeniable and significant impact on the school’s mission and its educational outcomes.
Education policymakers no longer continue to limit education policy to instructional designs and school governance, but are taking on issues related to larger social and community inequities impacting students’ lives and their learning—structural, economic, or family-related inequities or challenges that can impinge on students’ wellbeing, readiness to learn, and success in developing healthy social agency.
From “Wrap Around Services” to “(Full-Service) Community Schools”
One of the ways policymakers sought to help students in underserved communities was by making schools a focal point for the delivery of important community resources. In the 1980s this approach, based primarily on recommendations from physicians and mental health professionals, first gave rise to the term "wrap-around services".
The thinking behind the wrap-around services model was fairly simple: in communities where children and families were underserved or socially or economically disadvantaged, schools were convenient conduits for connecting at-risk youth with direct access to a wide range of social support resources and interventions. These resources, typically offered on a free or sliding-scale basis, could include: health services, vision and hearing screening, mental health screening and interventions, behavioral counseling, food and housing interventions, vocational training opportunities, legal aid, social and academic mentoring, increased opportunities for building resilient community bonds and networks, and so forth…
This wrap-around services model, however, might only indirectly involve educators and was often implemented primarily through the initiative of various community nonprofits and health providers. These healthcare specialists and other service providers connected with local schools for conducting community outreach, for information sharing, and for providing youth and their families more direct support.
Today, the “wrap-around services” model is one that many schools and school districts proactively pursue in order to empower students and the family and community networks around them and improve student learning.
Finally, by anchoring “wrap-around” services programming within the immediate community where the same school children live and learn, as opposed to relying on large state or regional partners, the odds are far better that school-directed programming will prove culturally responsive and better aligned with the evolving needs, interests, and ethnic or cultural preferences of the local community.
In recent years, school and school-district leaders, education policy makers, and funding agencies have built upon the wrap-around services model to create a more comprehensive community empowerment approach, one that has greatly informed the current iteration of the Community School, sometimes referred to as the Full-Service Community School.
Here’s how some experts describe the concept of Community Schooling today:
Today’s community schools build partnerships between the school and other local entities—higher education institutions, government health and social service agencies, community-based nonprofits, and faith-based organizations. These partnerships intentionally create structures, strategies, and relationships to provide the learning conditions and opportunities—both in school and out—that are enjoyed by students in better-resourced schools, where the schools’ work is supplemented by high-capacity communities and families. Like much of American education, today’s community schools focus more on meeting the individual needs of students and families (in terms of health, social welfare, and academics) than the earlier emphasis on strengthening communities or civil society more generally. However, the most comprehensive community schools today also seek to be social centers where neighbors come together to work for the common good.
Anna Maier, Julia Daniel, Jeannie Oakes, Livia Lam. "Community Schools: A Promising Foundation for Progress." American Federation of Teachers, citing: Reuben Jacobson. Community Schools: A Place-Based Approach to Education and Neighborhood Change. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2016.
The (Full-Service) Community Schools Model And Educational Equity
Today’s Community School model is one that is intended to be responsive to local community conditions
that may impact school climate or students’ academic success and if left unaddressed by school institutions
would likely undermine other education policy and reform efforts…
The fact that significant disparities across different local communities often impacted learning outcomes added urgency to policymakers’ efforts to find a genuinely responsive model for addressing and positively impacting students’ access to both basic resources and enrichment opportunities in order to ensure students’ overall wellbeing, health, safety, and readiness to grow, learn, and to develop positive social and emotional agency.
In fact, some researchers contend that disadvantaged communities not only indirectly impact students’ readiness to learn and succeed in school, but that these same communities also often receive less direct school funding as well.
The notion that policy makers needed to do more–and that a focus on school policy as such was inadequate to overcome external factors in many communities–pushed researchers, policymakers, community service groups, and educators to focus energy and resources on implementing effective Community School models or Full-Service Community School models.
Trademarks of these models are supporting, coordinating, and integrating wrap-around services, community empowerment programs and interventions, participatory school governance and leadership models, intensive educational interventions, academic support resources, and educational enrichment opportunities….
Today’s Community School model holistically and synergistically integrates the wrap-around services model with core initiatives headed by school leaders themselves and with educators’ focus on closing learning gaps and improving learning outcomes, including school systems and coordinated partnerships that can also routinely identify individual at-risk students and deliver targeted and effective interventions at the individual level.
While many of the programs that support Community School design are not highly innovative in their own right, and may have limited impact on their own, when properly integrated, coordinated, and managed into coherent designs that allow them to evolve and remain responsive to local community needs and interests, they can help schools and their local communities achieve positive outcomes across a range of mutually-reinforcing indicators:
improved school climate
enhanced educator morale and retention rates
improved student wellbeing, and reductions in at-risk behaviors
enhanced participatory leadership skills and capacity
more equitable learning outcomes across all student groups/subgroups
community-wide increases in health, safety, and social mobility
An Equity-Driven Framework Drives Goals, Funding Agency Priorities, and Success Metrics
Since today’s Community School model is rooted in efforts to combat inequities, Community School programming and designs, as well as public initiatives to fund Community Schools, typically target historically under-performing schools in as measured by:
% of students achieving at or below basic competency on core math and literacy curriculum standards
below-average graduation rates
significant and persistent achievement gaps (based on measurable academic performance data disaggregated for race and ethnicity, gender, or socio-economic status…)
vulnerability indicators or similar survey data, such as Health Schools surveys, suspension and expulsion data…
Likewise, this equity framework also means that funding opportunities for Community School initiatives will typically target underserved or underrepresented communities:
socio-economically disadvantaged communities
high-percentage BIPOC communities
communities impacted by elevated rates of absenteeism, unemployment, crime, incarceration…
communities impacted disproportionately by environmental health challenges, structural racism…
communities impacted by factors related to parent education level, home language status…
When thinking about integration and coordination, Community School advocates and program leaders should use equity-driven governance practices: evidence-based, research-informed, and inclusive and participatory decision making norms and processes to guide Community School planning, development, improvement, and expansion efforts:
identifying the most relevant and high-impact school and community goals and aspirations
engaging community interest, support, and commitments
using logic models or backwards design principles
committing to participatory and inclusive consensus-building norms and processes
identifying the kinds of initiatives that will address key obstacles or needs related to achieving the most high-impact goals for empowering students
coordinating programs and priorities to create mutually supporting systems and synergies.
A Community School Design Roadmap: The Four Programming Pillars
Information shared by the US Department of Education provides grant seekers with some critical insights for the kinds of programming that will be more responsive to the funding opportunity and in order to assist grant applicants in developing the most competitive grant proposal possible for local programming goals and needs.
The US Department of Education highlights Four Pillars of effective community schooling. The Four Pillars provide prospective grant writers with a quick view of key themes to address as they articulate the unique goals, objectives, and relevant programs and activities they want to fund.
Four Pillars
Pillar 1– Wrap Around Services that address out-of-school barriers to student learning (social services, health and mental health services, emotional support and counseling…)
Pillar 2 – Enrichment Opportunities
Pillar 3 – Active Family and Community Engagement
Pillar 4 – Collaborative Leadership and Practices
Pillar 1 Examples - Wrap-Around Services
guidance counseling and behavioral counseling
increased school nurse staffing
student and family health care screening and interventions
violence prevention programming and interventions
trauma counseling
implementing, maintaining, and monitoring robust screening systems and protocols for service referrals
year-round free and reduced cost meal programs
restorative justice / restorative practices
Pillar 2 Examples – Enrichment Opportunities
AVID programming
integrated day care or after-care programming
field trips
recreational programming (after school, weekends, summer…)
academic tutoring and life skills education and mentoring
Pillar 3 Examples – Active Family and Community Engagement
full-time school-to-community liaisons
culturally responsive professional development training for school staff
leadership training and opportunities for parents/guardians and other community partners
robust school-to-community outreach, orientation, communication, and community building
Pillar 4 Examples – Collaborative Leadership and Practices
systems-based leadership and governance practices
norms and structures that support shared decision making across internal and external stakeholders
collaborative problem solving
opportunities for leadership skills training
Want to learn more about the Four Pillars and related research findings? Try checking out the following resources:
"Community Schools: A Promising Foundation for Progress"
"What Is A Community School (Institute for Educational Leadership)
"Education Department Announces $68 Million in Grants..."
Community School Funding and Grants
If the money trail is any indicator, it seems that policymakers along with grant makers, such as the US Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) are lining up to support the expansion of Community Schools with robust federal funding authorizations that will translate into direct public funding and a variety of competitive grants supporting the Community School model:
Congress’ recent approval of $75 million to be used for full-service community schools, a 150% increase from the previous fiscal year, signals a growing recognition of Full-Service Community Schools as an effective strategy for improving student outcomes. President Biden’s fiscal year 2023 request for $468 million dollars to fund Community Schools reflects the Administration’s focus on improving equity within the education system. These additional funds will make significant progress toward the field’s goal of 25,000 Community Schools by 2025.”
"Community Schools Gain Traction in State Legislatures." Coalition for Community Schools. The Institute for Educational Leadership. Accessed 8/1/2022.
On July 12th, 2022 the US Department of Education announced discretionary grant funding for Community Schools totaling $68 million:
"These grants will help community schools provide quality wraparound services to students and their families, from access to health care and nutritional assistance, to tutoring and enrichment opportunities, to mental health supports and violence prevention programs. For low-income rural and urban communities hit hard by the pandemic, Full-Service Community Schools will help us meet the holistic needs of students, drive our recovery, and pave the way to a more equitable future." (Miguel Cardona, U.S. Secretary of Education)
STATE FUNDING ….
According to the Coalition for Community Schools, “thirty-nine bills have been introduced in state legislatures in support of expanding Community Schools, including creating funding opportunities for scaling and implementing new sites.”
And, the state of California recently announced $3 billion in support of Community Schools!
Getting a Community School Grant
Direct public funding, or funding in the form of grants–if you can win them–often provide the most robust funding sources for core financing of a Community School approach.
For more tips on funding a community school and developing different streams of income, check out the Partnership for the Future of Learning report: "Financing Community Schools: A Framework for Growth and Sustainability."
When it comes to grant prospecting, be consistent and thorough in efforts to identify grant opportunities aligned with the activities you wish to fund, and, when applying for discretionary or “competitive” grants, start early and develop the strongest and most compelling grant application possible. The reality is that the number of applications will often far exceed the funds available, so submitting a compelling, well-researched, and polished grant proposal is critical.
A good way to find out more about the goals of a specific federal Ed Grant funding opportunity is by referring to the corresponding NIA or Notice Inviting Applications.
The NIAs for specific Ed Grants are made public in the Federal Register, or can be searched for online using the grants.gov website.
The NIA or Notice Inviting Applications for the Federal Community Schools Discretionary Grants Program, describes the purpose of the program as follows:
Purpose of Program: The FSCS program is authorized by sections 4621-4623 and 4625 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended (ESEA). This program provides support for the planning, implementation, and operation of full-service community schools that improve the coordination, integration, accessibility, and effectiveness of services for children and families, particularly for children attending high-poverty schools, including high-poverty rural schools.
Keep in mind that this short summary of the funding purpose leaves applicant entities lots of leeway for tailoring proposed activities to their local needs and goals.
Also, legislation that ratifies this kind of spending is usually anchored in expert research findings. Entities that can articulate clearly and convincingly how their proposed Community Service activities align with the kinds of effective practices or “best practices” conveyed by the relevant research principles may have additional success in submitting a competitive grant proposal.
The AFT online publication: "Community Schools: A Promising Foundation for Progress" provides a convenient primer on key research findings and sources.
Ready to Apply for a Grant?...Next Steps…
Check for eligibility and alignment:
Carefully analyze potential grant opportunities and be careful not to spend precious resources of time, money, and energy pursuing funding awards by ensuring the grant priorities align with your needs and goals.
It’s also a good idea to make sure your organization (the applying entity) and its intended grant activities meet ALL the requisite eligibility criteria before you spend additional time and energy pursuing a specific grant opportunity!
2. Stay up to date and stay informed:
Prospective grant seekers may want to check out these OESE online resources to stay up-to-date on the Full-Service Community Schools Program grant opportunities or in order to access the agency’s grant developer webinars and related informational resources:
Full-Service Community Schools Program (FSCS)
FY 2022 FSCS Program Application and Competition
3. Carefully map out your proposal writing steps to ensure you can submit a complete application before the deadline:
Check to see if the grant opportunity requires an LOI (Letter of Intent). Many Federal Ed Grants require or strongly encourage applicants to submit a Letter of Intent before a specified deadline, one that is usually well ahead of the deadline for submitting the completed proposal.
Pro Tip: Identify the posted grant submission deadline (and any intermediate deadlines when applicable) and create a project management task list working backwards from the submission deadline (including a two-day grace period as an extra time buffer) and map out the work to be done. You can fill out this project management schedule with columns where you indicate who in the organization or its support network will be responsible for or needed for completing certain tasks, and how and by what day the task is to be completed.
Carefully and thoroughly review application materials as needed and be sure to conform to any formatting requirements and provide the kinds of information required.
In general, follow good grant writing practices by providing, when relevant, the following:
a compelling and well-documented need statement
clear and concise explanations of goals and objectives
succinct descriptions of the activities to be funded and how they align with your stated goals and objectives
an implementation timeline
an evaluation methodology and timeline
a profile of organizational personnel and organizational capacity related to goals and implementation of specific activities
a detailed budget that reflects allowable/eligible use of grant funds and is directly aligned with your proposed activities
provide details that anticipate and answer all of the questions that those reviewing your proposal are likely to be asking themselves as they seek to quickly identify how your proposal aligns with the funding opportunity priorities and targets, and the potential scope of impact your activities will have
Conclusion
For K12 schools and their partners working in disadvantaged or under-represented communities interested in developing or expanding a Community School model, pursuing current grant opportunities and prospecting for new opportunities in the future, could be an effective strategy for empowering your local community, improving school climate, building professional capacity, and helping local youth secure a more promising future!
Be sure to check out the grants.gov website for relevant Ed Grants and online resources for the US Department of Education and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE).
Contact the State Department of Education in your state, or other relevant state funding agencies, to find out about state funding, both direct funding initiatives and grant opportunities.
