Schools as Community Centers
My friend, Dr. Mark Naison, wrote a beautiful piece a while ago about his vision for education, which he graciously allowed me to reprint. I loved his idea of schools as community centers. I wanted to talk to about that for a minute:
I’ve worked in schools that began using their personnel and resources to offer community programs and assistance–in effect, becoming the community center of the neighborhoods in which they serve. One fantastic example is Leslie Middle School in Salem, Oregon, a school to which the staff referred as “the hub of the community.” Through their own research and conversations with people in their neighborhoods, they concluded that every school population is a microcosm of the area it serves; therefore, it makes creating programs for the community simple, since staff has a good background on the needs of families in the area and can tailor programs accordingly.
With a rapidly growing Hispanic population in Leslie’s service area, the staff offered both Spanish and English workshops for reading, writing, and speaking. They offered parenting classes, cooking classes, tax assistance,