Redesigning a core function of schools: A systemic, evidence-based approach to student support

Abstract

The authors of this chapter describe the development, operation, and achievements of a unique approach to student support developed in Boston, Massachusetts and called City Connects. Significantly, City Connects emerged from the lead author’s prior experience with community schools. The chapter author-leaders describe how they designed a systemic intervention to deliver services and enrichment opportunities to every student in the school. Their developmental journey is instructive in several important ways, starting with the time, resources, and investments needed to tailor services for each individual student. This Connect Connects journey is also instructive due to: (1) Leaders’ reliance on best practice research from start to finish; (2) Leaders’ commitments to evaluation-driven learning, knowledge generation, and continuous quality improvement; (3) Leaders’ attention to the unique, important characteristics of particular schools at the same time that they emphasized an overall coherent design for City Connects; and (4) The special contributions of local higher education faculty and students to this new design, together with the benefits they have reaped. Importantly, these leader-authors make it clear that, while their work has advanced to a significant stage, they are not done. Like the other exemplars featured in this book, City Connects is an important, still-evolving experiment that demonstrates all that can be done and achieved when leaders prioritize needs assessments, systematic planning, and research-supported interventions, and proceed carefully with implementation.