One of the challenges facing education reformers and innovators that see great potential in using cloud space as learning space, is the current functionality of warehousing students in physical buildings. What is school “for” anyway?
Community Schools (CS) work to aggregate many support functions for youth and neighborhood families in one physical location, the school building. But such programs also feedback into the surrounding community in complex ways, perhaps virtual ways, and it becomes hard to find an actual distinguishing line between the physical building and all that goes on as part of CS.
Recently the LCPS has been exploring extending the school day both in numbers of instructional days, and in greater after school services and programs. Funding has become available from the NM Legislature for such efforts. But some of the reasoning being put forth as to why these sorts of extensions are a good idea is a partial answer to “what is school for?” .
Karen Trujillo, current LCPS Superintendent:
Trujillo said the proposal is to serve students who don’t have access to opportunities that others do.
“We have a segment of students in Las Cruces who are able to engage in summer camps and travel and participate in activities. However, the majority of our students do not have access to those things because of transportation, because of finances, because parents are working and it’s difficult for them to receive that same amount of engagement,” she said. “By doing K-5 Plus or extending the calendar, we are now able to provide, in a safe environment, those awesome educational opportunities with trained teachers.
And it adds to food security for our kids because we know that they’re getting warm meals every day.”
Food Security? School as a soup kitchen? Presumably the nurses and other access to medical care will still be available at the school building, as well as some form of security guard.
Others quoted in the story below emphasize the day care/ babysitting/adult supervision/ “in loco parentis” functions of kids “being in school”.
“Some people cannot afford to pay for child care during the summer so this allows them to continue to work and not stress about their kid being alone or in the street,”
When we talk about “Community Schools” and their multifunctional services, it might help to realize that having a physical place that children can live during the day, and have essential food/ clothing/ shelter needs met, is already part of what we know as the educational landscape.
Another way to look at this is to imagine what such schools would look like without any educational instruction going on. It seems likely that we would still need them in most neighborhoods to provide a “place for children” and their needs.
[gview file=”https://publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Las-Cruces-Public-Schools-considers-extending-2020-21-school-year.pdf”]