The Madison Metropolitan School District’s (MMSD) community schools model has not yielded improved academic achievement or attendance at two of its longest-participating schools, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. Community schools work to provide a range of services and support for students’ physical, emotional and social well-being.
Madison’s community schools have provided resources like free clothing and food, presentations by local businesses like Epic, information related to immigration, access to medical resources, extra tutoring and more. Around 60 nonteaching staff, including family and community engagement liaisons, “village builders,” student engagement specialists and community school resource coordinators facilitate such work.
Around $4.8 million is allocated to the program from the district’s current budget, but the additional supports have not been correlated with improved math or reading scores at MMSD’s two oldest community schools — Mendota and Leopold elementaries. Both received the community school designation in 2016 and have some of the district’s largest percentages of low-income students.
Since that time, about 30% or less of the schools’ students have achieved proficient scores on the reading and math portions of the state Forward exam. An increasing percentage have been “chronically absent” — missing more than 10% of school days as students who have been enrolled for at least 90 days out of the school year.
The second-oldest community schools, Hawthorne and Lake View Elementary, saw similar trends, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
