The President's Budget and Our Work

Community schools aren’t a program they are the way we do business.
~Dr. Vince Bertram, Superintendent of Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation

The President’s 2012 budget is on the floor and being debated in Congress. During these uncertain financial times State houses and school districts across America are looking for efficient ways to spend their dollars, while still producing positive outcomes for their students, families, and communities. Recently, three community school initiative leaders (from Evansville, IN; Multnomah County, OR; and Cincinnati, OH) visited Washington, DC to brief Congressand the U.S. Department of Education to share how they do business. They shared how they are using the community school strategy as a vehicle to address their fiscal realities and the results they were producing.

The overriding policy recommendation that was consistent across all three districts was the need federal funding streams to be more flexible. This would enable them to effectively implement the community school strategy.

Stay tuned for more on these briefings in our March 2011 Newsletter! We will share, videos, photographs, and along with a synthesis of the briefings.

Learn more about how they are braiding federal, state, and local funding to implement the community school strategy, in the Coalition’s new publication: Financing Community Schools: Leveraging Resources to Support Student Success.

~ Shital C. Shah, Manager of Policy & Partnerships, Coalition for Community Schools