Educational Leadership

Sayre High School. The health center is a separate nonprofit whose governing board is composed of at least 51 percent community members. It is staffed by doctors from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and supported by faculty and students from Penn’s schools of Nursing and Dental Medicine, who work at the center as part of their professional training.

The Netter Center’s Agatston Urban Nutrition Initiative brings additional services to the health center at Sayre,

such as healthy cooking classes for
students and their families. This ini-
tiative operates a number of programs,
including
n Conducting nutrition education
classes for K– 12 students. These classes
incorporate many hands-on compo-
nents; for example, university students
who are enrolled in nutrition-related
courses work with public school stu-
dents to explore and address nutrition-
related issues in the community.
n Organizing K– 12 students to
improve lunchroom choices, operate
after-school fruit stands, and encourage
neighborhood grocery stores to create
convenient healthy food stations and to
operate community farmers’ markets.

n Working with physical education teachers and school coordinators to improve exercise opportunities during class; offering family-oriented exercise classes in the evening.

National Expansion

With grants from the Wallace Foundation, the Corporation for National Community Service’s Learn and Serve America program, and the Mott Foundation, Penn’s Netter Center has provided funding for 23 university– community school partnerships and training for more than 75 such partnerships. Here we highlight just three of the many universities that are powerfully contributing to this movement.

The University of Dayton, Ohio,
is a key partner in the Dayton
Neighborhood School Centers (www
. udayton.edu/artssciences/fitzcenter/
community_progs/neighborhood_
school_centers.php). After the end
of court-ordered busing in 2002, five
neighborhoods and their elementary
schools and local leaders, coordinated
by the University of Dayton, began
building sustainable partnerships. The
five Neighborhood School Centers, with
a local nonprofit as their lead agency,
offer a diverse range of programming,
all emphasizing developing the assets of
youth and the community.

Penn’s university-
assisted community
schools educate
all members of
the community.

The University at Buffalo, New York, through its Center for Urban Studies ( www.centerforurbanstudies.com), is advancing school and community development through a range of partnerships focused on neighborhoods in Buffalo’s East Side. The Futures Academy is the site for the center’s “Community as Classroom” initiative, in which students study their neighborhood’s history and work on projects to improve it. For example, Futures Academy students, university students, and area residents transformed a vacant, derelict lot near the school into the Futures Garden, a community garden and art park (Harkavy & Hartley, 2009).

University of Oklahoma–Tulsa Com-
munity Engagement Center (http://tulsa
. ou.edu/oucec/index.htm) was part of
the original team supporting the cre-
ation of community schools in the Tulsa
area and continues to participate on the
management team of the Tulsa Area
Community Schools Initiative. The Ini-
tiative, started in 2008, has developed
a network of community elementary
schools in the Tulsa and Union school
districts. These schools provide a range
of support services to students and their
families, such as the school-based health
clinics operated by the University of
Oklahoma–Tulsa. The university also
works with parents, developing their
leadership skills so they can reimagine
their schools and communities and take
active roles within the schools.

A Movement with Great Potential The university-assisted community schools now being developed in West Philadelphia and around the United States have a long way to go before they can effectively mobilize the untapped resources of their communities. Nonetheless, the initiatives described here indicate a growing movement, one that is producing significant change as it works to realize the democratic promise of the United States for all of its children and families. EL

References

Benson, L., Harkavy, I., Johanek, M., & Puckett, J. (2009). The enduring appeal of community schools. American Educator, 33( 22), 22–29.

Benson, L., Harkavy, I., & Puckett, J. (2007). Dewey’s dream: Universities and democracies in an age of education reform. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.