Great Plan for School Improvement
(Long Island, NY) The state budget included $175 million in funding for converting struggling schools into community schools. The community schools model have been shown to be highly successful in significantly improving student outcomes. Community schools provide social, emotional, health and academic supports to students, their families and the community.
While the overall funding for high need schools through Foundation Aid was way below the need, the $175 million allocation for community schools provides a much needed boost to high need school districts. This is a major victory for our state’s students. With this funding, schools that have been deemed “struggling” or “persistently struggling” can be transformed into community schools. There is also additional community schools money for other schools in high need districts.
“The community schools initiative is very exciting and has great promise to significantly improve student outcomes in some of the neediest schools in the state. Community schools have been highly successful in other parts of the country and right here in New York,” said Billy Easton, Executive Director, Alliance for Quality Education. “While the overall budget does not address the fundamental need to fully fund Foundation Aid, community schools is a very important victory that will provide hope to students and parents alike. We wish to thank the Governor for his original proposal on community schools and to thank the Assembly Majority for substantially expanding and strengthening the program. We also wish to thank Speaker Heastie for hanging tough against any expansion of receivership.”
The community schools model is based around providing positive supports for students and families. The new law requires parent, staff and community engagement in the development and implementation of the community school program. It is in stark contrast to the receivership model which was enacted last year and relies on top down interventions, very limited parent engagement and the threat of state takeover. Whereas top down intervention models such as receivership have a poor track record, community schools which rely on community driven reforms have a proven record of success.
Governor Cuomo initially proposed $100 million in community schools funding, and the Assembly successfully negotiated to add another $75 million and legislative language that requires parent engagement that strengthens the community school programming.
