Hartford Community Schools

Students in Hartford Community Schools – the newest initiative of the Hartford Foundation – made their mark during 2010, posting significant gains in the Connecticut Mastery Test, adding momentum to the city’s school reform movement.

The test, given annually to 250,000 state students in grades three through eight, showed Hartford Community Schools increased their state test scores by 5.6 points from 2009 to 2010. This represented twice the Hartford Public Schools average increase over the prior year, and 15 percent growth since 2008.

Built around a strong instructional core, community schools remain open well beyond the hours of a regular school day – before and after school, into the evening and throughout the weekend and summer.

“Community schools increase opportunities for children to succeed in school,” said Sara Sneed, the senior program officer who directs the Foundation’s Community Schools Initiative. “They offer academic support and educational enrichment programs, extra adult guidance and support, and increased access to health, dental and mental health services, all while also addressing students’ broader social realities, even their families’ most basic needs.”

“As community schools typically take several years to begin to show these types of test results, it is greatly encouraging that Hartford Community Schools have shown such gains so early,” said Hartford Community Schools Director Sandra J. Ward.

“The test results show what can happen when publicprivate partnerships, such as the community schools initiative, are aligned in support of children,” said Superintendent of Schools Steven Adamowski. “We look forward to expanding on these efforts.”

One area of program expansion in 2010 was the addition of full-time mental health clinicians in the community schools.

On-site services increase their use since they are in a familiar location and decrease the time a student is out of the classroom while also allowing clinicians opportunities to offer strategies to teachers and afterschool staff that will further the support given students and families.

The Hartford Foundation is one of the founding partners of Hartford Community Schools along with Hartford Public Schools, Hartford office of Youth Services, and united Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut. Two new members joined the partnership in 2010: Achieve Hartford!, a nonprofit catalyst for education reform, and the Hartford Department of Health and Human Services.

The initiative was launched in 2008 in conjunction with Hartford Public Schools overall school reform plan to close the achievement gap between Hartford students – where one in three families have incomes below the poverty level – and their suburban counterparts. The Hartford Foundation committed $3.1 million to the project over three years.

Three nonprofit agencies work in partnership with the principals and other key school staff to implement the community school model. Catholic Charities provides the services at Milner, The Village for Families & Children at Burr, while CoMPASS Youth Collaborative works at the other three schools. The Children’s Aid Society provides external community school expertise and technical assistance support.

The development of community schools in Hartford builds on many of the core elements of the Foundation’s After-School Initiative, established in 1994 to provide sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders in five city schools with a safe, educational and fun way to spend their afternoons by offering sports and cultural programs.