Los Angeles County Director of Public Health, Dr. Jonathan Fielding, captured the challenge that remains: " [N]eighborhoods most in need of more school seats are also the neighborhoods most in need of access to family health care, green space, affordable housing, and early childhood and adult education. We also know that the social and physical environments of neighborhoods contribute to the ultimate success of students and their families."

U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, while CEO of Chicago's Schools, embraced the community school facilities agenda: "For public education to really reach its potential, you have to rally the entire city behind the effort. You have to have the parks, the police, the private sector, the philanthropic community, the not-for-profit, social service agencies, and religious leaders backing you. Again, rallying the whole city, you can do some things differently . . . I think the problem is that public education has been an island. Our mayor is adamant that the best gift he can give to the city is well-educated children."

New Schools/Better Neighborhoods (NSBN) in it's new report, "What Next?" looks back at the last ten years of its work (and that of others in California and throughout the United States) and reflects on the organization's success in designing school as center of community, analyzes the altered political and regulatory landscape that fuels continued public and private sector focus on neighborhood serving partnerships around educational facilities, and chronicles what has transpired in construction of school facilities since the late 1990's both in Los Angeles and nationally,

"What Next?" concludes that there's still time and opportunity to build new and "greener" schools, better neighborhoods, and more livable communities. It reveals that LAUSD, alone, now has $1.5 billion in reserve and $8 billion more in bonding authority for school facilities, creating an invaluable opportunity to design schools that can be the healthy anchors of neighborhoods and encourage joint use of parks, libraries, education, extended learning opportunities, and other city programs and resources.

In 1999, New Schools / Better Neighborhoods (NSBN) released its first report, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, entitled "What If?" that envisioned leveraging billions of taxpayer bond dollars already slated for public education facility investments as a powerful force for reshaping blighted low-income neighborhoods into vital communities, with schools as their centers. The report resulted in the redesign of a number of metropolitan Los Angeles urban learning centers that now embrace the community.

Unfortunately, in ten years the institutional and bureaucratic silos remain and the current economic crisis pervading every level of government compels smarter leveraging of public dollars and assets.

"Working to ensure that schools are the center of our communities couldn't be more timely," says California State Senator and President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. "With waning state resources to fund critical services– from education to parks, health care to transportation–local communities must be empowered to leverage multi-agency capacity to help families get what they need during these difficult times. "

Nationally numerous school systems and associations have shown interest in and support for the concept of schools as centers of community. The American Architectural Foundation sponsors workshops for school leaders and mayors to discuss and plan for school facilities as part of community redevelopment and the planning for a new generation of schools that double as education facilities and community resources. Congressman Steny Hoyer (Maryland) has introduced legislation to support and encourage community schools. And funding is available through at least three different Federal programs to provide tax benefits for holders of school bonds. These are Qualified Zone Academy Bonds, Build American Bonds, and Qualified School Construction Bonds.

"What's Next" shows that what's good for the goose is good for the gander: school facilities that engage the community also improve student health, outcomes, education and community involvement.

John Perez, Speaker of the California Assembly Speaker concurs: "This approach is unique and exciting because it envisions schools as central to a community. It's long understood that communities need strong foundations in order to be healthy and grow, and this approach recognizes that schools are central to that foundation. Understanding a school within the context of its community, and better integrating the life of that school into the life of its community will produce synergistic benefits to both the school and the community."

As does Jack Scot, Chancellor of the California Community Colleges. "We've got to say, if a facility could be used by a school district, and a facility can be use by the city, and they can jointly work out between the two of them how they can be used, then the taxpayer's a winner, the school's a winner, the city's a winner. Everybody's a winner!"

The report is available online: http://www.nsbn.org/publications/whatnext/index.php
New Schools/Better Neighborhoods (NSBN) is a project of Community Partners in Los Angeles, California. This report is funded in part by the generous funding of the Stuart Foundation.

CONTACT: David Abel, Chairman, NSBN
New Schools Better Neighborhoods · www.nsbn.org
811 West Seventh Street, Los Angeles, California 90017
Phone 213-488-0737
Email [email protected]