The concept of community schools – where local education buildings serve as hubs for all resources and opportunities that students and parents need – is not new to Maryland.
But it is relatively new to Baltimore County. And thanks to grant money provided by the $3.8 billion Blueprint for Maryland’s Future legislation, the number of community schools in Baltimore County is increasing rapidly.
Shannon Ament works at one of the first community schools created in the county. Sandalwood Elementary has been a designated community school for five years because of its high concentration of students in poverty.
But the school didn’t really transform into a one-stop-shop for parent and student needs until Ament took charge.
Ament serves as the school’s community school facilitator, the key point person in charge of coordinating and delivering the services students and their families need. She’s been in the role since 2021.
“It's a 70 hour-per-week job. And I was doing a lot of it as a teacher,” Ament said.
She worked as a second grade teacher at the school for 20 years before taking on her new role. In some ways, that experience has made her job a little easier, she said.
“Because I already have relationships built. And I just know the pulse of the community,” Ament said.
Each community school facilitator has a distinct job. That’s because during the first year on the job, facilitators interview and survey community members to determine the top three needs in their local area.
Melissa Forster, who leads community school efforts in Baltimore County, said those needs can vary greatly from school to school.
“We’ve always told our facilitators, if you've seen one community school, you've seen one community school, because every community's needs are different,” Forster said.
That’s also why facilitators wear many other hats in their roles.
Malkia Pipkin, starting her second year as facilitator at Chadwick Elementary School, also runs all of her school’s communications. Harry Wujek, facilitator at Holabird Middle School, spent last year filling in for a vacant secretary position in the main office.
“There's a lot of moving parts with community schools,” Forster said. “One day you may be doing a dental clinic. And then the next day, you may be facilitating an out-of-school-time program or meeting with a political figure.”
Many Baltimore County residents don’t really know what community schools – or their facilitators – do, Forster said.
“It's so new, and it's just a different way of schooling than we've previously done,” she said.
Two years ago, there were only eight community schools in Baltimore County. Now, there are 56 – and more are coming. That’s because the model is working, Ament said.
“At the end of the day, the higher ups are concerned with the academic needle moving. And I think they see community schools as a way to do that,” she said. “Because you have to address the needs of the whole child in order to do that.”
Facilitators struggle with parent communication, funding
But running a community school is not easy, facilitators said. It comes with a fair share of challenges.
From the beginning, facilitators struggle to get community responses for their need assessments. Pipkin said parents ignored her surveys for a while.
“It's not blaming anyone, it's just that life happens,” she said. “They have a lot of other things to do. We send a lot of school messaging.”
Language and cultural barriers make that communication even more difficult. Pipkin’s school has a growing population of immigrant families from Pakistan and Israel.
“The kids are usually the ones that are doing their interpreting,” Pipkin said. “But when we're sending things home, it kind of gets lost in translation somewhere.”
Some schools have the resources that others need. Ament’s school, for example, has a Judy Center – which provides childcare and education to young children – on site.
But Pipkin says early childhood education is a top need for her school community. And she doesn’t have the resources – or the spacing – to address it.
“We have one pre-K program; it's a half a day program,” Pipkin said. “It's just not equitable to have one pre-K class for the amount of people that we have in this community. This one is kind of beyond my scope, because of spacing. We're at capacity for everything in this building.”
Facilitators also struggle to access the funds for projects provided through the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Concentration of Poverty grants – which funds schools based on the percentage of low-income students over the past four years.
“And I get it, they have to make sure that every penny is accounted for and spent in a meaningful way,” Ament said. “It just makes things challenging when I need supplies for events and I need it this month. But I keep getting denied for whatever reason.”
Facilitators spend a significant amount of time searching and applying for other grants to fund their projects.
“One of my hobbies is couponing, which is another reason why they probably selected me for this,” Ament said.
‘I look at this job as connecting the dots’
Facilitators have to get creative with their solutions in a lot of different ways.
“I look at this job as connecting the dots, like a puzzle,” Pipkin said.
Chadwick needed more school-run events to boost engagement, and Pipkin needed survey responses for her needs assessment. So, she started raffling off crock pots and coffee makers at winter concerts as an incentive for parents.
Ament says she turned to social media to increase outreach.
“And I stand out front with that bullhorn when I need to, with a big sign,” she said, pointing to a megaphone in the corner of her office.
Ament also said she tries to cram as many resources into an event as possible. Her school reported “needs access” as their top deficit – including food, healthcare, clothing, and more.
So, at her monthly produce market held in Sandalwood’s cafeteria, Ament invites workers from Medicaid and other organizations, and has donated clothing available for taking.
And she stocks a supply closet full of items from toys to winter coats to hygiene products.
Wujek partners with the elementary school across the street to boost engagement and impact for events. During the last joint farmers’ market, 486 community members showed up.
Pipkin said there’s a waiting list for accessing Maryland Food Bank funding. So, she partnered with the Baltimore Hunger Project to send students home on weekends with enough food for families, too.
All three facilitators are working to combat chronic absenteeism, which is when students miss 18 or more days of school over the course of the year. At Ament’s school, 44% of students hit that threshold last year.
“That's a month of school. That doesn't work,” she said.
That’s why Ament and Pipkin are both working to bring more after-school activities to their schools, which don’t have access to regular sports programming. Ament has partnered with the YMCA for one option.
“We select kids that not only apply for it, but have been marked chronically absent, because research shows that students that are involved in after school programming are more likely to have good attendance because they want to be able to go to said after school program,” Ament said.
Each facilitator has big projects on the horizon. Ament is hosting a “trunk or treat” full of candy and trunks of resources, which drew 500 people last year. Wujek just scored a grant to start a mentorship program for student success. Pipkin is planning a health clinic for the end of October to boost access to vaccines, mental health services, and more.
“Events really change the culture of our school,” Ament said. “Because people are coming out and getting to know their neighbors.”
