What Are Some Concerns With Community Schools?

HB3374 – Tammy West and Pemberton (Senate) – Community schools; authorizing the State Board of
Education to assist in establishing community school pilot projects
1. President Obama placed Full Service Community Schools into the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act in 2016. They are called “full service” schools because they provide every need for a child that a
family/parent would including education, counseling services, healthcare and nutrition.
(https://www2.ed.gov/programs/communityschools/index.html)
2. The Biden Administration is continuing to provide grants for Full Service Community Schools programs
(https://oese.ed.gov/offices/office-of-discretionary-grants-support-services/school-choice-improvement-
programs/full-service-community-schools-program-fscs/) through President Obama’s reauthorization of ESEA -
the Every Student Succeeds Act.
3. There are two national organizations which help support the Community Schools model – Community
Schools (communityschools.org) and the National Center For Community Schools (nccs.org)
a. Community Schools have an agenda called “Policy by The People” the tenets for which they are
lobbying Congress (https://www.communityschools.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/01/2021-01-
13_IEL_PolicybythePeopleagenda_FINAL.pdf). Here are a few points from their agenda which essentially
involves expanding government programming and funding of every service involving children:
- Prioritization of populations that have historically experienced systemic racism, discrimination,
and/or disinvestment
- End the school to prison pipeline/school pushout crisis through stronger enforcement of civil
rights protections and incentives for a restorative approach including restorative justice, trauma-informed
practices, and hiring additional school counselors, social workers, and psychologists
- Raise the minimum wage to $15/hour and/or establish a universal basic income
b. National Center For Community Schools follow three principles: Transformation, Equity and
Excellence. The ‘Equity’ portion of the website says the following: Strong community schools counter
systemic racism, increase opportunity, and move society toward equity and justice.  Too many children are
expected to overcome structures designed to diminish them. Schools should model anti-racism, not perpetuate
systems that divide us and limit opportunity.  We want students to feel not just welcomed, but valued for their
race, religion, identification, origin, family, and community.
4. Community Schools follow the model proposed by John Dewey (a socialist with Marxist views often
considered the father of modern education) of a ‘democratic school-based social center’ where the school
provided every possible need for students. An article in the AFT’s American Educator Magazine in Summer of
2009 – “The Enduring Appeal of Community Schools” – provides a quote from Dewey’s 1902 address, “The
School as Social Centre”, “The conception of the school as a social centre is born of our entire democratic
movement. Everywhere we see signs of the growing recognition that the community owes to each one of its
members the fullest opportunity for development.” This, a quote which can’t help comparison to the quote of
Marx, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
5. Enshrining a Community Schools pilot program in law while allowing the OSDE to create rules for that
program is a recipe for creating further progressive, leftist inroads into the education of our children.
6. Oklahoma communities HAVE BEEN creating their own Community Schools independent of state law. The
only reason to pass a state law, then, would be to allow the growth of the Community Schools movement
throughout Oklahoma and provide the necessary validation for the Federal Government to provide tax dollars
for these schools. Federal/State tax dollars should NOT be provided for socialist, progressive education efforts
in this country, let alone this state.