Building Bridges: A Summer Program for Middle School Students Highlights a Community School in Action
Description:
This issue brief outlines key features of a community school, and examines how one summer program models and leverages these features. Specifically, this brief focuses on the Summer Bridge program at Kennedy Middle School, one of four schools in Redwood City, California, shifting to a community school approach. Summer Bridge showcases key community school design features in action, highlights how these features support student success, and provides concrete examples of challenges and lessons learned in the process of community school development. In conversations about Summer Bridge and her work on the community school process, Kennedy's Community School Coordinator repeatedly speaks to what keeps her going: "Not a single student lacks dreams for a positive future." As a community school, Kennedy partners with people, institutions, and the broader community, with the goal of supporting every youth in every aspect of their development.
Suggested Citation:
Hofstedt, M. (2007). Building Bridges: A Summer Program for Middle School Students Highlights a Community School in Action. Stanford, CA: John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities