Ferrara, Jacobson, and their colleagues illuminate how community schools become a comprehensive, place-based strategy that both supports high-quality teaching and learning and addresses out-of-school barriers to success. They provide first-hand accounts of how diverse actors, working together, build partnerships between the school and other local entities—higher education institutions, government health and social service agencies, community-based non-profits, and faith-based organizations. These partnerships intentionally seek to provide opportunities and supports that are enjoyed by students in better resourced schools in which the schools’ work is routinely (but often invisibly) supplemented by high-capacity communities and families.

Ferrara, Jacobson, and their colleagues illuminate how community schools become a comprehensive, place-based strategy that both supports high-quality teaching and learning and addresses out-of-school barriers to success. They provide first-hand accounts of how diverse actors, working together, build partnerships between the school and other local entities—higher education institutions, government health and social service agencies, community-based non-profits, and faith-based organizations. These partnerships intentionally seek to provide opportunities and supports that are enjoyed by students in better resourced schools in which the schools’ work is routinely (but often invisibly) supplemented by high-capacity communities and families.