WHO WE ARE
The Virtual Hub for Community School Research and Practice was conceived through a collaboration between three members of the Drexel University School of Education (SoE) faculty—Dr. Kathleen Provinzano, Dr. Allen Grant (now at SUNY Potsdam), and Bruce Levine, J.D.—as a result of conversations with community school thought leaders, practitioners with whom we interacted, and our own observations of the need for a resource of this nature. Development of the Virtual Hub was supported by an internal SoE Faculty Research Funding grant.
We also collaborated with SoE students, primarily, but not exclusively, from the doctoral programs. We are always seeking collaborators from within Drexel University but also from the world of community school practitioners and researchers.
WHAT WE DO
We provide a virtual space for researchers + those in the field to connect.
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The Virtual Hub for Research and Action in Community Schools seeks to promote community school research and highlight community school practices from the perspective of scholars and practitioners engaged in the work. Community school initiatives over the past three decades have demonstrated that sustainable and scalable change begins organically within the community (Warren, 2005), and that obstacles within and outside the schoolhouse gate are not mutually exclusive and should not be treated as such in education research, practice, and policy.
Exemplar community schools work with community-based organizations, non-profit organizations, and other public or private entities to coordinate and provide a set of integrated student supports, including health services, academic services, and social services (Bronstein & Mason, 2016). The Virtual Network offers a live and active virtual space for stakeholders to engage in professional learning, share stories and successes, brainstorm challenges, and access research resources necessary to scale and sustain community school work. The far-reaching impact of the Virtual Network is grounded in its virtual nature. Stakeholders, regardless of place, have access to these services and are positioned to collaborate with researchers and practitioners across global and national contexts.