Poverty and unemployment aren't spread evenly across cities or regions, but rather are concentrated in disinvested urban neighborhoods and rural communities around the country. These communities are home to the nation's most vulnerable children and families. Despite some signs of improvement in economic conditions for families in the United…

This strategy guide is for mentors, support workers and coaches who are working with school-aged children and youth who are affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). In addition to supporting these children and youth at home and in the community, mentors may be involved in advocating for and supporting them at school. This guide…

This guide provides assistance to the lawyer who has volunteered to help a law-related education project by soliciting supplementary funds from local business, civic, or other sources. Specifically, the guide offers guidance in identifying and approaching potential donors, preparing the request for funds, and organizing supporting data and…

Business incubators can help fledgling firms get off the ground by providing business services and rental space, at below-market costs, for a business's first few years. The payoff for the community is more jobs. Concentrated until recently in urban areas, incubators are now succeeding in rural areas too. (JHZ)

There have been well over 200 Presidentially declared disasters in the United States in the past 5 years. No state has been spared. The costs associated with these events are staggering. Communities can take responsibility for alleviating the impact of natural disasters to ensure citizen safety, prevent damage to facilities, prevent delays of…

The purpose of this handbook is to help communities initiate small grant programs for teachers using the one currently operating in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) as a model. Small grant programs, in which teachers compete for community-sponsored grants to carry out innovative projects with their students, are described as meeting two needs: new…

Focused on the practical tools that education leaders can use to improve communications with their own colleagues, with parents, and with the general public, this guide can be used by school districts and states to organize their communication efforts strategically to build public support. The guide includes step-by-step information to develop a…

Guidelines and ideas for creating successful school/community projects are provided in this handbook. Organized like a cookbook, the book contains 43 chapters by individual contributors who take a community-based approach to education, in which the schools are the pivotal institutions of a community. The first section outlines the roles, or…

Parents served by the Madison, Wisconsin, Metropolitan School District were surveyed to gather information on parent employment and child care arrangements, and attitudes about the kinds of support that should be made available for school-age children. Also elicited were beliefs about the age when children could be safely left alone. A total of…

This paper summarizes the major points raised at a conference on "School/Community Collaborations: Policy Implications for Urban Education" held in New York City (New York) on May 12-13, 1988. Schools or school districts have successfully collaborated with businesses, unions, schools of higher education, hospitals, youth agencies,…

This book recognizes that publicity is required for interpreting the school to the community and the community to the school. Well-designed community-relations programs can create a sense of friendliness and good will toward faculties, provide adequate financial support for schools, and develop a sense of responsibility in the community for the…

A growing number of charter schools are being designed, launched, and operated by community-based nonprofit organizations (CBOs). This resource guide is intended to target a priority technical assistance need: creating and sustaining a healthy relationship between a new charter school and a founding community organization, leading to the creation…

The Take Pride in America (TPIA) school program encourages volunteer stewardship programs to help protect, enhance, and manage public lands such as school sites, forests, parks, water reservoirs, historical sites, fish and wildlife areas, public nature preserves, and wilderness areas in the United States. From this program an educational guide and…

This manual, developed by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, is intended to help concerned community members make school health education a reality. It provides suggestions on how to get people organized to take the right steps. The manual's suggestions are based on three statements. First, health education means teaching people…

The newborn is amazingly equipped to acquire language and literacy--these early years are the foundation upon which later learning is built. Drawing on current research, the authors of this book examine the elements of beginning language and literacy and look at how families, programs, and communities can encourage beginning language and literacy…