I 
114TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 718 
To amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 in order 
to support the community schools model. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 4, 2015 
Mr. HONDA (for himself, Mr. CARTWRIGHT, Mr. COHEN, Ms. NORTON, and 
Mr. LOWENTHAL) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Education and the Workforce 
A BILL 
To amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act 
of 1965 in order to support the community schools model. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Supporting Commu-
nity Schools Act of 2015’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) The community school model effectively 
leverages multiple education funding streams, which 
results in greater resources for a school. Community 
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schools increase and sustain capacity through diver-
sified financial support and leverage, on average, 3 
dollars from private and other sources for every 1 
dollar of State funding provided to the schools. Ac-
cording to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, for 
every dollar spent on community schools, the United 
States is getting back 5, 6, or 7 dollars from the 
business community, nonprofit organizations, social 
service agencies, and State and Federal govern-
ments. 
(2) According to Linda Darling-Hammond, the 
Charles DuCommon Professor of Education at Stan-
ford University, community schools, which make 
local schools the hub of education and health serv-
ices for children and families, have proven to be 
highly successful and are cost effective and 
replicable. Community schools are a force for devel-
opment and stability that strengthens families and 
communities, and such schools offer childcare and 
early learning, family literacy and job-training, tu-
toring and enrichment before and after school, and 
on-site health clinics. 
(3) The bulk of community school resources go 
directly to assist schools in meeting the schools’ core 
instructional missions, while also strengthening the 
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health and well-being of students, families, and 
neighborhoods. Community schools dedicate approxi-
mately 57 percent of expenditures to support learn-
ing through academic enrichment and after school 
activities, summer learning programs, early child-
hood education, service learning and civic engage-
ment, life skills, sports, and recreation. The second 
largest expenditure, 19 percent, is directed towards 
health and mental health services, which ensure that 
children are physically able to learn and that health- 
related barriers are identified and addressed. On av-
erage, 12 percent of the resources are spent on sup-
porting families, adult education, and immigrant 
services. Twelve percent is spent on staff sites, in-
cluding the costs of a coordinator, tutors, interns, 
mentors, and volunteers, working on the alignment 
of activities for the community school. 
(4) The Tulsa Area Community Schools Initia-
tive (TACSI) in Tulsa, Oklahoma, operates 18 com-
munity schools that serve as centers of community 
life, offering comprehensive programs, services, and 
opportunities to students, families, and the neigh-
boring community. Researchers compared 18 TACSI 
schools to 18 non-TACSI schools and found that 
students in TACSI schools that had deeply embed-
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ded the community school model scored significantly 
higher than comparable students in non-TACSI 
schools on mathematics achievement tests. Further, 
the 18 TACSI schools had higher ratings of instruc-
tional leadership and effective supervisory practices, 
a stronger culture of faculty trust, and higher levels 
of student trust of teachers, school identification 
among students, parent trust in school, and school 
outreach, than the comparison schools. 
(5) In Multnomah County, Oregon, Schools 
Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) transforms schools 
into community schools. SUN is a partnership of 
Multnomah County, the City of Portland, including 
Children’s Investment Fund, local school districts, 
the Oregon Department of Human Services, a Busi-
ness Leader’s Roundtable, and nonprofit organiza-
tions. Data shows that students who regularly par-
ticipated in SUN activities showed strong gains in 
academics, attendance, and behavioral areas. There 
was a 76 percent increase in State benchmark scores 
in reading and mathematics for such students, the 
average daily school attendance at such schools was 
95 percent, and 74 percent of the students had a 
more positive attitude toward schools. 
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(6) All Cincinnati, Ohio, public schools are 
using some level of the community school strategy. 
Cincinnati Public Schools have been the most im-
proved urban district in Ohio. Cincinnati, Ohio, is 
the first urban district in the State to receive an 
‘‘effective’’ rating. The district had a rating of ‘‘aca-
demic emergency’’ when the districtwide community 
learning center program first began. Oyler Elemen-
tary School, where 92 percent of the students receive 
free or reduced lunch under the Richard B. Russell 
National School Lunch Act (42 U.S.C. 1751 et 
seq.), was once threatened with closure. Oyler Ele-
mentary School has achieved more than its expected 
level of growth for more than 2 consecutive years. 
The school’s performance index has improved by 6 
percent in the last 2 years alone. 
(7) In Providence, Rhode Island, results from 
Bailey Elementary School, the first full-service com-
munity school in the State, are positive. In 2009, 
Bailey Elementary School made adequate yearly 
progress in both mathematics and reading for the 
first time in 4 years. In reading, students in grade 
3 went from scoring 27 percent proficiency in 2007 
to 41 percent in 2009, scores for students in grade 
4 jumped from 28 percent proficiency to 59 percent 
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during the same period, and students in grade 5 
moved from 12 percent proficiency to 39 percent. 
(8) The Evansville Vanderburgh School Cor-
poration (EVSC) in Evansville, Indiana, is a district-
wide community school system that serves over 
22,000 students in 38 schools. Students are con-
nected to their schools and to helping institutions 
like churches and community organizations, libraries 
and health clinics, recreation centers and volunteer 
agencies, all of which allow students to explore and 
participate in the larger community. 
SEC. 3. PURPOSE. 
The purpose of this Act is to provide State edu-
cational agencies and local educational agencies with the 
funding, flexibility, and support necessary to implement 
a research and evidence based community school model, 
in order to— 
(1) enable local educational agencies and com-
munity partners, including public and private agen-
cies, community-based organizations, local govern-
ment, institutions of higher education, families, fam-
ily advocacy organizations, after school program pro-
viders, summer program providers, museums, librar-
ies, and other cultural institutions and civic organi-
zations, to leverage their resources to prepare stu-
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dents for institutions of higher education, careers, 
and citizenship, through the creation and establish-
ment of community schools; and 
(2) to provide funding for the creation, continu-
ation, or expansion of results-driven partnerships 
that align numerous funding streams, including pub-
lic and private funding, and leverage existing fund-
ing. 
SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS. 
Section 9101 of the Elementary and Secondary Edu-
cation Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 7801) is amended— 
(1) in paragraph (39), by striking ‘‘STATE.— 
The’’ and inserting the following: 
‘‘(40) STATE.—The’’; 
(2) by redesignating paragraphs (7) through 
(36), paragraphs (37) through (39), and paragraphs 
(40) through (43) as paragraphs (8) through (37), 
paragraphs (39) through (41), and paragraphs (44) 
through (47), respectively; 
(3) by inserting after paragraph (6) the fol-
lowing: 
‘‘(7) COMMUNITY SCHOOL.—The term ‘commu-
nity school’ means a public elementary school or sec-
ondary school that— 
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‘‘(A) provides a coordinated and responsive 
set of programs and integrated student sup-
ports that focus on academics, mental and 
physical health and social services, youth and 
community development, early care and edu-
cation programs and services, expanded learn-
ing time (including summer learning), and com-
munity engagement that leads to improved stu-
dent learning and development, stronger fami-
lies, and healthier communities; 
‘‘(B) is supported by a set of partnerships 
between such school or local educational agency 
and other community resources, such as com-
munity-based organizations, nonprofit organiza-
tions, and other public or private entities with 
a demonstrated record of successfully meeting 
student and family needs, consistent with the 
purpose of a community school model, as de-
scribed in section 3 of the Supporting Commu-
nity Schools Act of 2015; 
‘‘(C) in addition to serving as an elemen-
tary school or secondary school, also operates as 
a center of the community that is open to the 
community and provides or hosts relevant serv-
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ices for the community, to the greatest extent 
practicable; 
‘‘(D) allows for the coordination of the as-
sets of the school and communities to more effi-
ciently and effectively meet the needs of all stu-
dents; 
‘‘(E) provides opportunities for collabora-
tion between the specialized instructional sup-
port personnel who are employed by a school or 
a local educational agency and are responsible 
for providing specialized instructional support 
services, school nurses, and other staff to offer 
a comprehensive range of services and opportu-
nities to children, families, and communities; 
‘‘(F) identifies a site coordinator (who may 
be provided through a partnership with a non-
profit organization) to serve as a liaison with 
partner organizations in order to assist the 
community school in providing children and 
families with the integrated services and com-
prehensive supports that are needed to improve 
the learning of children and the ability of chil-
dren to plan for postsecondary educational op-
portunities, such as services and supports re-
lated to— 
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