Maryland Center for Community Schools

The Maryland Center for Community Schools (MCCS) engages in relationships with community schools and school districts throughout the state to support their work as they implement the strategy, and conducts research to understand the impact of community schools as they work with families, students, and communities.

MCCS: A Central Hub for Community Schools

Housed within Towson University College of Education, the MCCS is a central hub in Maryland for comprehensive support to school districts and community schools. MCCS aligns with Towson University and the College of Education's larger goal of being civic partners to the greater Baltimore region and Maryland.

Through MCCS, TU is contributing to the improvement of public education and the success of the Blueprint for Maryland's Future legislation. MCCS works in collaboration with TU faculty, staff and students, community school staff members and other partners.

MCCS will focus on training, professional development, research and evaluation.

Goals

  1. Implement a tiered professional development strategy to support various staff roles at community schools and local education agencies in collaboration with MSDE.
  2. Roll out a family and community certificate program to train community school staff.
  3. Host an annual conference at Towson as well as regional meetings.
  4. Create and link to online resources for community schools.
  5. Conduct case studies of the implementation of community schools statewide.
  6. Build research studies to assess the efforts of community schools.
  7. Communicate about community schools on social media.

Partners

Group of students and professor
Read About TU Becoming the Central MCCS Hub
TU Becomes Home to Maryland Center for Community Schools More Information

More About Community Schools

A community school is a public school that serves as the hub of its neighborhood by uniting families, educators, community partners and other local supports. It is an evidence-based strategy to promote equity and educational excellence for each child and strengthen families and communities. Although applicable to any school, this approach integrates the Blueprint for Maryland's Future legislation and leverages Concentration of Poverty Grants to ensure resources and support are directed towards schools with the highest needs to improve their capacity to address disparities and foster holistic development in students. 

Learn more about the essentials for community school transformation through an infographic provided by the Learning Policy Institute.   

Contact Information