Coalition for Community Schools / July 2011
“Helping our young people succeed requires paying attention to the many aspects of their lives that
influence learning. We have been a major partner in the Cincinnati Community Learning Centers
Initiative to coordinate existing services and capture other funding sources to better meet those
challenges.”
Robert Reifsnyder, President and CEO of the United Way of Greater Cincinnati
The Community School Strategy: Cincinnati’s community schools initiative began with the district asking
the community for advice on how to spend $1 billion to rebuild the city’s school buildings. The broad
vision was to transform Cincinnati’s Public Schools (CPS) into community schools ‐‐ what Cincinnati
chose to call Community Learning Centers. School board policy anticipates that all schools will
eventually become CLCs. CPS and various community partners offer opportunities and support in core
areas such as physical, mental, and oral health; extended learning college access, tutoring, parent
engagement, and early childhood. The community schools strategy has helped community partners
become better organized to strategically meet the needs of individual CLC schools and students without
duplicating services.
Results: Cincinnati Public School District is the most improved urban district in Ohio. It is the first urban
district in the state to receive an “effective” rating. The decline in overall enrollment in CPS has
reversed with almost 6,000 more students than projected. Oyler Community Learning Center, a prek‐
12 community school, has shown enormous academic gains. The school has increased its Performance
Index 15.2 points, higher than all other elementary schools in the Superintendent’s Elementary
Initiative. Also, students are graduating from high school and matriculating to college in record
numbers. With the 2010 senior class and two prior years of graduates from an accelerated program,
Oyler has graduated more students in the neighborhood from high school in the past 3 years than in the
collective 85 prior years.