SUN Initiative History
There have been many successful efforts to place services in schools within the City of Portland and Multnomah County. In the social service realm, school-based health clinics, family counselors, and drug and alcohol counselors have been based in schools for the past several years to address the developmental issues of children, and to some extent, their familes. These services have been funded and/or staffed by Multnomah County and the Oregon State Department of Human Resources. The City of Portland Parks and Recreation has had a Community School program operating for nearly twenty years, at thirteen sites in four school districts across the city, to provide after-school and adult education programs. Youth-centered agencies, such as the Boys and Girls Club and Campfire Boys and Girls, have worked in and with the schools to provide safe places for young people to use their leisure time and reduce teen pregnancy and juvenile crime.
In Portland and Multnomah County, we have the opportunity to create an enhanced strategy for extending the school day for young people and using our school buildings as the "community centers" of the neighborhood.
Click here to download the complete SUN Schools Concept Paper in PDF* format.
*You will need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0 or better to view this file. If you do not already have a copy of this free software, you can download it from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html
Original Concept Paper
In June 1998, the Sponsor Group of the Community Building Initiative decided to develop a strategy to support local communities and schools. The Community Building Initiative is a partnership between Multnomah County, the City of Portland, the City of Gresham, the State of Oregon, and the school districts. We have been working together over the past year to develop a long-term strategy for extending the school day and coordinating services more efficiently in the cities' and County's public school districts.
The following governmental jurisdictions to date are involved in designing a community schools model for Portland, Gresham, and Multnomah County:
- Seven school districts within Multomah County are participaing in design
- Urban district student population 58,835
- Rural district student population 753
- Suburban districts range
from 3,680 to 6,135
- Multnomah Education Service District
- Multnomah County Government
- City of Portland
- City of Gresham
- Oregon State Department of
Human Resources (DHR)
Our efforts are consistent with a growing body of local and national research. High-quality extended-learning opportunities and "full-service" schools have measurable benefits of improved student achievement, attendance, commitment to school, and disciplinary behaviors. Neighborhoods served by school-based after-school, weekend, and summer programs are safer. Students who have a safe and supervised place to go while their parents/guardians are at work are less likely to engage in high-risk activities and waste time in front of television sets.
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Key Components of the Extended Day "Schools Uniting Neighborhoods" Community Centers are:
- There are three broad goals of the community school model. The first and top priority will be educational success for our
children. Schools will take the lead on this priority
with the other partners playing a supportive role.
- The second goal is to provide a social and health service support system that will assist in supporting children and
their families so that each child can be successful in
school and in the community. The County, DHR and
non-profits experienced with community-based social
services will take a lead role in this area.
- The third goal is to provide enrichment and recreational opportunities that will connect the curriculum of the school and after school activities for the students. It will also provide recreational and educational programs for parents and adults in the neighborhood. By extending the school day and the number of hours a school is used and open, a school can become a community center. It can then
serve as a community-gathering place for any number of
services and activities. The City of Portland and
Portland Parks & Recreation, the City of Gresham
and Gresham Parks and Recreation, and youth
programming agencies will take the lead in enrichment
and recreational opportunities.
- A vital component is to connect and integrate the activities so that we increase
the chances of success for our children. Curriculum
alignment, relationships between the school staff and
other staff, and coordination of programming and
building use are essential.
- The involvement of youth, their parents and others in the community
in the design, leadership and participation in the
programs is key to building a relevant and effective
community school.
- Evaluation and Continuous Improvement are key mechanisms to
ensuring that we capture the successes of the research
and full-scale models being in used in other cities,
such as Los Angeles, New York and St. Louis.
- The
extended-learning model we are developing for Portland
area schools is consistent with the research
literature and designed to accommodate evolving local
needs, assets, and resources. We have already seen
that this model of co-management linking school and
community-based expertise has promising early results,
as a result of the exciting initiative at Lane and
Binnsmead middle schools in outer Southeast Portland.
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Early Local Results are Promising
The
$100,000 investment made by Bank of America last spring
to this initiative in outer Southeast Portland is
compelling evidence of our ability to broker successful
partnerships. Preliminary results are promising.
Participation in before and after school academic, arts
and science programming have tripled (from an average of
40 each to 250 each day), while suspensions have
declined (from 50 to 15 in the first semester compared
with last year).
We
will aggressively pursue a broad base of local, state,
and national support for a comprehensive system of
after-school programs that will help more students meet
Oregon's rigorous new academic standards and prepare for
productive future careers and responsible citizenship.
Early estimates indicate that it will cost between $100,000 to $250,000 in new resources to fund the start up of a full-service community school. The amount of new resources allocated will be directly related to the existing services and personnel located within a school. We will start at least four demonstration sites during 1999-2000 school year,
based on the amount of resources we gather.
We
will initially target schools and neighborhoods that
have several qualities and characteristics:
- They have a successful history of integrating
services and intergovernmental collaboration
- They have a successful history of community
partnerships, and the ability to work with and involve
parents and children in meaningful planning,
governance and participation in programming
- They have a three to five year plan which
integrates the broad parameters of this concept on a
local level
- They have a group which is ready and willing to
champion this effort in the school and the community
and willing to work hard to leverage additional
resources
- There have challenging neighborhood conditions,
including, that they:
- Are underserved by social support services,
and recreational and educational resources
- Have increasing numbers of new residents from
different cultures
- Are challenged by student performance
- Are challenged by unemployment and poverty
The program is not simply for high risk or at risk youth; it is for the entire school population and the surrounding community. In fact,
schools may choose to provide programming and services
for students and children from adjacent schools and
child care centers.
For the first several community schools sites, we will build upon successful partnerships. Our emphasis will be for elementary and middle school, with particular attention to the transition between elementary and middle school (6th graders) and middle to high school (9th graders) within Portland Public Schools. There will be strong emphasis on parental involvement. The
other school districts within the County, which are
significantly smaller, may choose to locate and/or
concentrate their efforts in high schools.
We
anticipate a broad variety of partners, including
Portland State University, Saturday Academy, and the
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, to help students
experience the real-world value of math, science, and
reading skills, and involve them in opportunities to
address problems and issues in the communities
surrounding them. We anticipate partners like the
community colleges and the universities to offer adult
learning opportunities. In addition, we anticipate that
non-profit organizations such as the Caring Communities,
Oregon Council for Hispanic Advancement, the
International Refugee Coalition of Oregon and the Asian
Family Center will partner to provide culturally
appropriate classes and clubs involving young people and
their families. In addition, the Boys and Girls Club,
Campfire Boys and Girls and other major providers of
youth programming have expressed interest in
participating.
Leveraging Existing and New Resources: We plan to utilize both existing and
new resources. For instance, the County and State fund
extensive social services that could be further
integrated into a school setting. Portland and Gresham
Parks and Recreation Departments fund recreational staff
and programming that could be reconfigured. New dollars
will be invested in the management and coordination of
the social services, in order to free teachers and
principals to focus their efforts on teaching, as well
as additional services, based upon community input.
Click here to download the complete SUN Schools Concept Paper in PDF* format.
*You will need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0 or better to view this file. If you do not already have a copy of this free software, you can download it from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html
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