By Dawson Raspuzzi

April 2, 2011

BENNINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is looking at the community school model used at Molly Stark Elementary as an alternative for the lowest-performing schools to keep federal funding without letting go of principals or teachers.

Legislation introduced by Vermont’s independent senator earlier this month encourages the community model that forms partnerships between schools and community resources to focus on academics, health care and social services.

Public schools determined to be in need of improvement under the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act now have four choices in order to receive School Improvement Grant money: Closing the school, replacing the principal (which happened in Burlington last summer), replacing the principal and at least half of the teachers or becoming a charter school (which Vermont does not allow).

Sanders’ proposal is to add a fifth option that he says would promote stronger families and healthier communities. It calls for offering a range of supports and opportunities to children and others in the community. The service providers might include doctors, dentists, family clinicians and others who would be available even outside of regular school hours. The senator’s office said the implementation cost would be covered by the federal money the district receives, so it would not affect local spending.

The community school model has been used across the country. In Vermont, Molly Stark is the only school to adopt it, beginning in the mid ‘90s through the efforts of former principal Sue Maguire, according to Sanders’ office.
"The idea behind a community school is that you have kids coming into school and they have all different opportunities. A community school levels the playing field," said Maguire, who is now the principal of Mount Anthony Union High School.

By putting health care and human services in a school, Maguire said students are guaranteed access, which in turn can make it easier for students to learn.

"Having good health care, having good social services and all that, makes kids more available to learn. If you’re feeling sick, if you’re worried about where you’re going to sleep tonight, if you have these worries, it doesn’t matter how good the teaching is," Maguire said.

Sanders, a member of the Senate Education Committee who has long supported the community school approach at Molly Stark, said the bill gives school districts across the country more choices instead of forcing them to take "draconian" measures.

"Schools in Vermont and across the country work every day to provide quality education for their students," Sanders said. "When schools fall short, there should be more options that just firing a principal or replacing half the teachers or closing the school."

Sanders said the community school model engages the community and supports parents by providing opportunities for adults to increase their own life-long learning.

"The community school approach has worked well in Bennington and could be a model for the rest of the country. Providing a variety of services that link classrooms to the larger community can help schools do a better job and students get a better education," Sanders said.

The senator’s office also said the method has proven to leverage existing federal, state and local education spending in a way that gets the most out of limited resources.

In Vermont, the ten "persistently low-achieving schools," based on standardized test scores in math and reading, are eligible for additional federal assistance. To receive the federal funds, those schools must take one of the four steps. The decision to apply for the additional funding is up to the district school board, although if it chooses not to apply it misses an opportunity to claim a significant amount of money.

No schools in Bennington County are on the list.

This year, Vermont received about $1 million in School Improvement Grant money, which is must less than it has in past years.

Last summer, the principal of H.O. Wheeler Elementary in Burlington was let go in order for the Burlington School District to qualify for up to $3 million in federal grant money.

The district, students and parents supported the principal, who had been in place six years, but the district could not turn its back on millions of dollars to help educate its children, according to the senator’s office.

Sanders hopes his community schools legislation will be made part of a bill reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which Congress is expected to consider this year.