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State of Urgency 2023

About

The Southeast Regional Coalition for University-Assisted Community Schools (SRCUACS) was recently awarded as the sixth regional training center for university-assisted community schools (UACS) by the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania.

SRCUACS will serve the critically important role of consolidating colleges and universities within the state and across the region to enhance practice and advance policy change for the expansion and sustainability of community schools. SRCUACS will act as a convener and central hub organized around six elements: Coalition Building, Storytelling, Connecting, Pipeline Development, Policy Change, and Research.

Coalition Building

SRCUACS is a three-institution collaboration between East Carolina University, Duke University, and North Carolina Central University. North Carolina and the Southeastern United States is home to a robust and diverse higher education ecosystem. By leveraging collective assets, SRCUACS envisions an opportunity to learn across differences while also creating context-specific professional learning communities. Join our monthly network calls to broaden and deepen our coalition!

Storytelling

SRCUACS draws inspiration from UACS Regional Training Centers’ peer-reviewed publications and related public-facing initiatives including UPenn’s Universities and Community Schools Journal, UCLA’s Community Schooling Journal, and IUPUI’s ENGAGE! Journal.

SRCUACS expects to advance the work of community schools and their university partners by providing dynamic vehicles for practitioner storytelling. Stay tuned for our online publication in Fall 2024!

Connecting

SRCUACS engages in asset mapping of the material, human, and organizational resources that the partner institutions have available to offer local community schools. Close examination of these assets will help the collaborative understand where duplication exists across the state and region and identify spaces for innovation.

Pipeline Development

SRCUACS will develop and operationalize a transformative educational preparation pipeline to effectively recruit, prepare, and sustain community school practitioners. SRCUACS will develop organizing frameworks for sharing curriculum and pedagogical strategies, including research- and practice-based standards that guide regional and state educational preparation programs to prepare racially diverse, historically literate teachers for service in locally situated university-assisted community schools.

Policy Change

Policy change and ongoing support from policymakers will be essential to realizing the potential for the UACS model in North Carolina and the region. SRCUACS will leverage its work to support policy changes that result in an increased number of community schools, more effective implementation of the UACS model, and enhanced professional preparation programs that produce individuals with the capacity to contribute to the UACS model.

Research

Community-based action research plays an essential role in building relationships between public-school communities, higher education institutions, and other partners. Action research is a powerful tool that can support the work of community school and UACS coalitions by generating data-driven insights into the effectiveness of the strategy and identifying areas for improvement.

Monthly Network Calls (Noon - 1PM EST)

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