Connecting through community schools - Community schools are both a place and

Rather than arriving at school exhausted, In my first speech as president of the AFT in hungry and stressed—or not getting to school I have been crisscrossing the country on a tour 2008, I called for a vast expansion of commu- at all—unhoused students in the Stay Over of community schools—public schools that are nity schools. [...] They’re all different, like Umana and Sarah Greenwood are the result The AFT is fighting to make community schools because they start with the premise of providing of the Boston Teachers Union’s decadelong cam- the norm, not the exception. [...] The union and Boston Public Schools which has expanded grants for full-service com- grant and refugee families in Kansas City, Mo., just reached an agreement that will expand munity schools since taking office—from $25 to financial literacy classes and adult education community hub schools to 20 next year, up from million in 2020 to $150 million in 2023. [...] Community schools community schools are one of the most effective Last week, I visited the Collins Academy High strategies we have to help students and their School, a community school in Chicago, with are both a place and families thrive. [...] More than 11 million chil- gomery and Tony Johnston, who are calling for students and families dren live in poverty in the United States—the state and federal funding to increase the number equivalent of the number of residents in Maine, of sustainable community schools in the city thrive.