APS Schools as Community Hubs
APS’ Schools as Community Hubs Strategy is one of the key strategies in the Destination APS Strategic Plan. This strategy is aligned with established frameworks for Family-School-Community Partnerships, CO-MTSS and Community Schools, emphasizing integrated support systems, powerful engagement, and collaborative leadership.
The five essential core pillars that each school community will implement are:
- Culture of Belonging, Safety and Care: a welcoming and safe environment where every individual—students, families/caregivers, and staff—feels physically and emotionally safe as well as seen, valued, heard, and celebrated. It's more than caring relationships; it's a foundation cultivated through transparent processes and practices that promote equity, shared ownership, and authentic engagement.
- Comprehensive Support Services: an integrated system of academic, social-emotional, physical, and mental health supports, collaboratively provided by schools, district teams, and community partners. These services are designed to meet the holistic needs of students and families by leveraging their diverse strengths and cultural assets. They aim to connect families to essential resources and remove barriers, ensuring every student and family feels heard, valued, and connected within their responsive school community.
- Strong Family Partnerships: a collaborative and inclusive relationship between families, schools, and the APS community, built on mutual respect and trust, with the shared goal of supporting student learning, healthy student social emotional development, and overall student well-being. These partnerships are rooted in culturally sustaining practices to honor and leverage the diverse linguistic, cultural, and experiential assets that families bring to the school community.
- Community voice and shared decision-making: actively engaging diverse stakeholders, including families, students, educators, and community members, in meaningful and ongoing collaboration to shape educational policies, practices, and programs in culturally sustaining ways. This pillar emphasizes creating structures and processes that ensure transparent dialogue, value all voices and expertise, and empower community members to be full partners in decisions that affect children and families, cultivating shared power and responsibility.
- Expanded and Enriched Learning Opportunities: intentional, high-quality programs and experiences that go beyond the traditional classroom to support academic growth, social-emotional development, and student engagement. These opportunities may include afterschool programs, summer learning, tutoring, STEM/arts enrichment, field experiences, and partnerships with community organizations.