School Health Program News - Education Development Center

School-Community cont’d.Lessons LearnedThree important lessons emergedfrom these evaluations:Lesson #1: Quality Counts. Thequality of the community schoolinitiatives has a significant impacton its outcomes.Lesson #2: Attendance Matters.Higher attendance in communityschools contributes to improvedachievement. Children in communityschools want to come to school,and, therefore, they learn more.Lesson #3: Everyone Benefits—theNeediest Most of All. Students withthe greatest need—those mostlikely to be in low-performingschools—benefit the most from thecommunity school environment.Community schools that reach outto low-income and underachievingstudents can begin to narrow theperformance gap among studentgroups and across schools.The report is available atwww.communityschools.org.Wingspread Conference onSchool Climate andConnectednessThe University of Minnesota’s Centerfor Adolescent Health and Developmentand the Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention’s Divisionof Adolescent and SchoolHealth (CDC-DASH) will host aJune invitational meeting entitledSchool Connectedness—StrengtheningHealth and Education Outcomes forTeens at the Wingspread ConferenceCenter in Racine, Wisconsin. Themeeting will bring together nationalleaders in education to explore theevidence base and develop a clearand concise set of guidelines thatprofessional organizations can endorseand that schools can adopt toimprove connectedness—the positivefeelings that students have aboutschool.The goals of the meeting are as follows:1. Synthesize what is known aboutschool climate and connectednessand its relationship to educationaloutcomes and healthrisk behaviors.2. Explore effective interventionsthat improve school climate andconnectedness, and identify thecritical elements that such interventionshave in common.3. Provide schools across Americawith clear and concise guidelineson how to improve school climateand connectedness.4. Provide a simple assessment toolthat schools might use to assessclimate and connectedness.Empirical evidence from longitudinalstudies confirms that the connectednessof children and adolescentsto school is a key element inschools’ core mission of improvingacademic outcomes, according toDr. Robert Blum, Professor of Pediatricsand Adolescent Health at theUniversity of Minnesota. In addition,growing evidence links such connectednessto reducing health riskbehaviors and bullying and otherinter-personal aggression. The conferencewill feature additional studiesthat enhance understanding oflinks between school climate, studentconnectedness, and academicperformance.The meeting sponsors have commissioneda series of analyses by nationalexperts, including JohnBishop, PhD, Cornell University;Richard Catalano, PhD, Universityof Washington; Del Elliot, PhD, Universityof Colorado; and JimConnell, PhD, Institute for Researchand Reform in Education. In addition,sponsors are synthesizing theMay 2003relevant educational and health literatureas well as survey instrumentsthat have been used to measureschool climate and its related dimensions.The university, CDC, anda major foundation will develop anational dissemination strategy forconference recommendations.To receive information about theconference and its recommendations,contact Heather Libbey atlibb0016@umn.edu.University-AssistedCommunity School ProgramWins Youth DevelopmentPrizeThe National Academies and theWilliam T. Grant Foundation haveawarded the Foundation’s YouthDevelopment Prize to the University-AssistedCommunity School Programin Philadelphia, Penn. Theprogram involves the University ofPennsylvania’s Center for CommunityPartnerships, the Philadelphiaschool district’s West Region, andthe West Philadelphia Partnership,a community organization that comprisesneighborhood groups andvarious local institutions. Programparticipants focus on science andscientific research in their classroomand outreach efforts, both using theresources of learning centers basedin city schools.The president of the National Academies’National Academy of Sciences,Bruce Alberts, praised theaward winner’s application of scienceto important issues in theworkaday world, saying, “The University-AssistedCommunity SchoolProgram is designed to apply evidence-basedknowledge to the criticalmatters” of nurturing and supportingthe positive development ofyoung people. The CommunitySchool Program has three key thematicareas that are grounded inresearch: environmental health,7