Full-Service Schools describes the movement to create an array of integrated support services in schools. It examines the declining welfare of many American families and prescribes solutions for the problems of increased sex, drugs, violence, and stress among youth.

This book proposes a solution to the problems of dwindling education and social service budgets, as well as the plight of the inner-city youth who are struggling with substance abuse, behavioral problems, health-care needs, and community violence.

This document reports on a study of a model full-service community school and explains the kind of services provided, staffing considerations, ways of involving community partners, governance arrangements, and parent involvement. It considers the barriers to creating this kind of school and explores ways to fund programs. The narrative offers a snapshot, in fall 2001, of Molly Stark Elementary School in Vermont, but it is also an apt description of similar schools. It focuses on experience, documented and anecdotal, to present the concept. The first part of each chapter focuses on what is going on in other educational settings over the country. The second section uses examples from Molly Stark school where quality instruction is combined with extended-day and extended-year services, health and social services, and parent education and support. The document also examines the prognosis for community schools and considers how they should be sustained. Appendices provide a community-school assessment checklist, a community needs assessment or appearance survey, child-care programs handbook, request for consultation, sample after-school program forms, sample communications with parents about after-school programs, and sample job descriptions for families of employees. (Contains 74 references.) (RKJ)

Originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, this expanded text provides new insights into the successful, sustained implementation of Full-Service Community Schools (FSCSs) in the United States. Reviewing the Success of Full-Service Community Schools in the US documents the experiences of students, teachers, and communities involved in the establishment and growth of FSCSs. By considering how successful this reform strategy has been in meeting the needs of underserved communities, the text illustrates the potential these schools have to transform students’ learning and outcomes. In particular, the studies illustrate the value these schools have in supporting low-income students and students of color. At the same time, by interrogating the defining pillars of FSCSs – expanded learning opportunities, integrated services, family and community engagement, and collaborative leadership – chapters identify challenges that if left unattended, could limit the transformative potential of this reform strategy. This groundbreaking text will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, academics, professionals, and policy makers in the fields of Educational Change and School Reform, Multicultural Education, Sociology of Education, Education Policy, and School Management and Administration.

Based on the trials and triumphs of an award-winning program, this guide contains everything needed to create a full-service school - from planning processes to funding strategies to service delivery. It shows schools and community agencies how to develop workable joint agreements that accommodate a variety of programs, confidentiality issues, and service delivery approaches. Valuable resource materials include needs assessment forms, interagency agreements, program evaluation tools, facilities criteria, funding sources, and family service coordination plans. Templates of survey forms, sample agreements, and other program tools are also available on disk.

Around the world, schools are being asked to offer new services to students, families and communities in order to overcome the effects of disadvantage. This book critically examines the role of full service and extended schools.

Primary topics include definitions and practices of full service schools, a review of the literature and setting up, the organizational effects on schools from structure to stories, key steps in starting a full service school and the critical importance of collaboration, including art and social science based on the tenets of art and meeting the non-curricular needs of children and families. A 3-Step Model is presented, containing key phases in action planning within the school community, building commitments, parent empowerment, harmonizing school-owned and community-based health and social services, identifying professional development needs, and planning supports for teachers and ways to improve life in classrooms.