ABSTRACT
This chapter describes community schools, research that undergirds approach, results from community school initiatives across country and analyzes how essential elements of this strategy—including authentic family and community engagement—contribute to these positive results. Community schools have turned out to be easy for donors to understand, and study visits to schools have helped to translate their conceptual understanding into financial commitments. The community school strategy has its roots in late 1800s and establishment of first urban settlement houses, which offered essential learning and development opportunities as well as health and social services to newly arrived immigrants in urban neighborhoods. The 2009 ActKnowledge study found that Children's Aid Society community schools had 'far higher' attendance than peer schools and that schools with on-site health centers tend to have higher attendance than those without. Another important finding on attendance came from early Fordham studies, in which evaluators found teacher attendance to be higher at community schools than at comparison schools.
