Project 1: The “all-important potential and current community schools analysis” project

Unlike other services such as transport, we don’t track every single time a student accesses a school nurse or counselor (or needs to see a counselor in a timely manner but one is not available). We don’t always track when a student is accessing school-based dental or medical care, or a school-based mentor or tutor. If we did, we would learn a lot about the needs of students and possibly their parents.

No single number will give you a complete picture of the situation: the totality of student and parent needs. However, by gathering multiple data sources and tracking them over time, you should be able to get an idea of the need and level of support for community schools exists in your community. Here’s your list:

• School districts: They may have data on of students in need of various forms of supports and whether they accessed them.
• Private schools: They can be reached through each school’s administration.
• Domestic Violence Programs: Some may keep data on children and teen participants seeking school-based supports. Unlike the government, they’re not necessarily obligated to give you the data, but they probably will.
  Child welfare data: While not easy to acquire, there may be a way to access data on parents and youth seeking school-based support. Maybe.
• American Community Survey: The ACS is an ongoing survey that provides vital information on a yearly basis about the United States and its people. Information from the survey generates data that help determine how more than $675 billion in federal and state funds are distributed each year.

As mentioned, this won’t be as simple an assessment as the transport situation, but if you get these numbers, you should at least be able to tell if the situation in your community is trending in a positive or negative direction.

Imagine, in some sci-fi future, all residents had a youth pass — a plastic card or mobile app with barcode — that would be used for all forms of school-based wraparound services and programs. Now imagine that an AI program analyzes all these data from all county residents to identify high and low use and where gaps in services exist, offering recommendations for fixes.

In this project, you will be gathering as much data as you can to paint a picture of local schools in the process of becoming community schools and those that already are.

Some community schools will still be adding services. This important information will tell the story of the current status of community schools, a first step in identifying challenges.