Collaborative leadership, shared power and voice
NYC community schools are grounded in shared leadership and collaborative planning among school administrators, the lead CBO, and other key stakeholders. Community schools build a culture of professional learning, collective trust, and shared responsibility. Each community school has a community school director from the lead CBO who coordinates and integrates services, programs, partnerships, and supports for students and families.
Lead community-based organizations (CBOs):
- Hire a community school director (CSD)
- Develop and coordinate community partnerships
- Integrate and align the work of existing and new community partners to the overall goals of the school
- Ensure the personalization of services and programming to meet individual students’ needs
The principal, School Leadership Team (SLT), and the lead CBO develop a collaborative leadership structure (such as a Community School Team) that meaningfully includes the voices of students, families, and other community members in planning and carrying out the vision of the community school.
OCS & NYC PS Resources
Additional Resources
Collaborative Planning Suite
The Office of Community Schools (OCS) is pleased to announce a refreshed suite of materials to support your community school collaborative planning meetings based on valuable feedback from the field.
This set of support and guidance materials includes:
- A PowerPoint Presentation: An overview you can use to learn about and/or introduce the collaborative planning process to
- A Guide to Collaborative Planning: Contains similar information to the PowerPoint but in a compact handbook format
- Meeting Agenda Template: A Word template the meeting facilitator can download and adapt
- Prework Worksheet: Sample discussion questions by community school core feature that can be shared with meeting participants prior to the meeting to reflect upon; can also be used to build out the agenda
The Assets & Needs Assessment
The NYCDOE Assets & Needs Assessment helps schools to identify resources to leverage to meet student and family needs, support collaboration with community partners and other stakeholders, and develop goals for the school’s Comprehensive Education Plan (CEP).
Instructions:
- Download and/or print the Assets & Needs Assessment and request an online link to the assessment. You will be emailed a link to access your school’s survey.
- Convene your Community School Team and complete the assessment.
- After you submit the online assessment, you will receive your school’s Assets and Needs Assessment Site Report (sample report HERE).
- Share the results of the report with your school community at various events. Use the results to develop and/or enhance programs and services.
The Assets and Needs Assessment has four sections.
This assessment tool is also available in the following languages.
Through a partnership with Change Impact, a library of self-paced workshops is available to you on the Change Up Learning platform. The platform includes a set of courses designed specifically for NYC community schools as well as a broad library of youth development and education topics.
Each community school can set up two accounts on the platform at no cost. Please note only NYC community schools are allowed to use this link, and accounts are available through June 30, 2025.
Activate your account using this link.
Once you register and log in, you can enroll in courses such as:
New York City Public Schools
Office of Community Schools
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