Community Schools

Lead partner: Redwood City School District
View all partners and funders.

About Community Schools

Community schools also called “full-service” schools offer students and their families’ services and opportunities beyond the academic instruction. They are grounded in a rich tradition of efforts to link education and community.   Simply put, community schools bring together many partners to offer a range of supports and opportunities to children youth, families and communities. The fundamental belief guiding this approach is a conviction that schools, families and communities can work together for their common good

What does a Community School look like?

While each community school is unique, Redwood City Community Schools have the following common features:

Quality Instruction: Community schools, first and foremost, emphasize learning.  Students are held to high academic standards and benefit from school-based curricula and instruction to help them meet these standards.

Partnerships: Community schools are structured as partnerships among schools, families, government agencies, non-profit and funding agencies to bring to the school sites services and expertise in different areas.  For example, each community school houses a Family Resource Center where students, families and staff can find counselors, benefit and health insurance specialists and parent involvement facilitators. Moreover, our community schools offer a range of learning opportunities designed to complement students’ work in the classroom.  These activities can take place through structured before and after-school programs and/or or other community-based learning experiences. 

Shared Leadership: The community school model calls for true collaboration so that partners work together on planning, implementation, evaluation, and advocacy and decision-making.

Coordination and Integration:  Programs and services are coordinated and supported by a Community School Coordinator. This takes the burden off of the Principal, which allows them to focus on the academics. Services and supports are integrated with each other and with the school’s core instruction. Everyone on campus is working towards the same set of goals.

Current Redwood City Community Schools

For many years, Redwood City 2020 has worked to bring needed programs and services to children attending Redwood City School District schools.  The five community schools listed here started with Healthy Start funding from the State of California, an effort to locate support services on school sites.  Over the intervening years, the Healthy Start program has evolved and these schools now closely reflect the Community School model that is growing nationwide.

Redwood City 2020 now supports four full service community schools and one emerging community school which serve over 3000 students and their families in the Redwood City School District. Read about the impact of the Community Schools Initiative.

Contact information

Sandra Portasio, Director of School – Community Partnerships
Redwood City School District
750 Bradford Street
Redwood City CA 94063
650-423-2268, sportasio@rcsdk8.net