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University-Assisted Community Schools: Effective Partnerships for Connecting Higher Education, School, & Community Resources

Coalition for Community Schools National Forum

May 2012

The Netter Center for Community Partnerships Team: Sterling Baltimore, Site Director, Lea

Community School Patrice Berry, Site Director, University

City High Community School Cory Bowman, Associate Director Rich Liuzzi, Site Director, Wilson

Community School

+ The Netter Center for Community Partnerships

Our Mission: Founded in 1992, the Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships is Penns primary vehicle for bringing to bear the broad range of human knowledge needed to solve the complex, comprehensive, and interconnected problems of the American city so that West Philadelphia (Penns local geographic community), Philadelphia, the University itself, and society benefit.

Core Propositions:

Penns future and the future of West Philadelphia/Philadelphia are intertwined.

Penn can make a significant contribution to improving the quality of life in West Philadelphia/Philadelphia.

Penn can enhance its overall mission of advancing and transmitting knowledge by helping to improve the quality of life in West Philadelphia/Philadelphia.

+ Academically Based Community Service

Addresses universal problems as they are manifested locally through collaborative problem-solving, K-16+

Service rooted in and intrinsically tied to research and teaching

Aims to bring about structural community improvement (e.g., effective public schools, neighborhood economic development)

Designed to improve the quality of life in the community and the quality of learning and scholarship in the university

Helps students to become contributing, creative, democratic citizens

+ The Vehicle for Change:

University-Assisted Community Schools

Guiding Principles

Open doors to all before and after school, weekends, & summers

Serve educational, social service, health, and recreational needs

Focus on the school as the core institution for community engagement and democratic development

Link school day and after school curriculum to solving real world, community problems

Engage youth as deliverers not simply recipients of service

Engage universities as lead partners in providing intellectual, human, and material resources

Employ site director as primary liaison between university, school, and community resources

Develop and coordinate programs

Serve as member of school leadership team

Ensure mutually-beneficial partnerships

+ K-16+ Partnership Approaches

Activities should be aggregated and integrated for change Lack of coordination of efforts

Efforts are geographically and topically scattered

K-12 and higher ed education have similar needs that should be addressed in and through collaboration

Civic education and democratic development

Real-world problem solving, collaboration, and communication skills

Partnerships should be integrated with the core missions teaching and learning of both institutions Partnerships as service not connected to research and teaching are

less mutually beneficial and sustainable

+ University City High Community School

UCHS priorities

Enhanced learning experiences

Extended academic support

College and Career Readiness

Human capital

Penn partnerships Expanding learning opportunities

Academically Based Community Service Courses (ABCS) in STEM, Evaluation, Community School Organizing, etc.

Wharton-Netter program supporting business education

Providing human capital

Community Schools Student Partnerships

Leonore Annenberg Teaching Fellows

Penn Medicine, University City District, Agatston Urban Nutrition Initiative, and others

+ University City High (contd) Community Schools Student Partnerships (CSSP)

A student-run organization

Members are volunteer, and work study undergraduate and graduate students

At UCHS, CSSP Students:

Act as during-school and after-school academic tutors, and CACR mentors

Are matched with teachers to provide classroom tutoring support

Provide ongoing one-on-one college and career readiness mentoring in partnership with

Philadelphia's Graduation Coach Campaign

Philadelphia Youth Network (PYN) WorkReady

21st-century skill development curriculum

During-school, after-school and summer internship opportunities that offer students access

to mainstream career experiences

UCHSs WorkReady Implementation:

Weekly Educational Entrepreneurship and CSSP Graduation Coaching (12th grade)

Leaders of Change: Social and Educational Entrepreneurship (11th grade)

Business partners include: Children's Hospital of PA, Hospital of University of PA, Day and

Zimmerman, Medicaid and Medicare, The Wharton Business School, Mercy Hospital,

Motivos Magazine, Martin Chan LLC, University City District

+ Wilson Elementary Community School

Project-Based Learning (PBL)

Experiential learning learning through doing, collaboration, research

Teacher as guide / facilitator

Project planning & lesson planning

We are ALL scholars

After-School Program

Scheduling Project Cycles 6 weeks long / 4 to 6

cycles per school year

1 hour per program day (4:45 pm 5:45 pm, 5 days per week)

Daily PBL Themes: M & W: Social & Emotional Learning

Tu: Civics, Service, Social Justice, Cultural Studies

Th: Science, Health, Nutrition, Ecology

F: Electives

Summer Program Summer Curriculum / Daily

Enrichment Blocks: Mornings:

Social & Emotional Learning

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics)

Afternoons:

Civics, Service, Health, Nutrition

Physical Education

+ Wilson (contd)

ABCS @ Wilson Community School

The Politics of Food - Prof. Mary Summers

Healthy Schools - Prof. Mary Summers & Prof. Jane Kauer

The Biology of Food - Prof. Scott Poethig

Community Based Environmental Health - Prof. Richard Pepino

Other Penn Partnerships @ Wilson Community School

Community Schools Student Partnerships (CSSP)

Agatston Urban Nutrition Initiative (AUNI)

Penn Science Across the Ages (PSAA)

Financial Literacy Community Project (FLCP)

Bootstrap (computer programming program)

Senior Service Interns Program (SSI University City High Community School)

+ Lea Community School

Supporting Principals, Teachers, & Support

Staff

School Action Plan

Professional Development, particularly through

ABCS

Grant Writing and Collaboration

Technology Support

Media and Marketing

In-school Tutoring that focuses on Individualized

Learning Plans

After-School Program Tutoring and Mentoring

Community Service Days for students groups: this

could be an opportunity to finally paint the

cafeteria or school yard!

+ Lea (contd)

Parent Outreach

After-school parents are required to attend monthly meetings, which

typically brings in a lot of participants.

School administrators and staff can participate in the meetings or add

agenda items to reach a population of parents that they dont normally

capture.

UACS frequently network with other organizations and therefore can

streamline resources to parents during those monthly meetings.

Specific Program Examples

Black Wall Street

Mural Arts

Structured Lunch & Recess

+ University-Assisted Community Schools National Replication

1993-2004: 23 higher education-school-community partnerships across the country adopted model; additional 75 teams trained

2008-present: Regional Training Centers

University of Oklahoma-Tulsa

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)

Ongoing Training & Technical Assistance

Site Visits

Conferences

+ Tapping your Local Institutions of Higher Education

Campuses have various offices that coordinate their community partnership activities. To start, we suggest contacting:

Any office with community, service-learning or civic engagement in its title

Service-learning coordinator

Interested Faculty in Related Disciplines

Office of Campus Ministry

Student Life Volunteer Center

Co-ops/Internships/Career Office

Federal Work-Study Office

+ Tips for Higher Ed Partners Build off existing relationships between your institution and school partners.

Reach out to school principals and teachers to explore potential partnerships.

Spend time at the school and in the community to get to know the staff and culture.

Involve school administration, teachers, students, and community residents in collaborative efforts from the beginning (e.g. a community asset mapping project).

Start with a core group of teachers who are enthusiastic about the initiative and willing to incorporate problem solving learning into their curriculum. The hope is that their positive experience leads other teachers to be open to university partners in their classrooms.

Consider linking ABCS courses