University-Assisted Community Schools

A University-Assisted Community School (UACS) is a community school in which universities serve as the lead partner in providing broadly based, sustained support. Academic partnerships connect the university’s and school’s curricula through a focus on helping to solve local community-identified problems. This approach is designed to improve both the quality of life in the community and the quality of learning at all levels of schooling.

The Netter Center has forty years of experience developing and adapting the University-Assisted Community Schools model that was created with its school and community partners in West Philadelphia.

A major component of the Netter Center's work is mobilizing the vast resources of the University of Pennsylvania to help traditional public schools become innovative University-Assisted Community Schools (UACS) that educate, engage, empower, and serve public school students, families, and community members. UACS focus on schools as core institutions for community engagement and democratic development, as well as link school day and after school curricula to solve locally identified, real-world, community problems. At the same time, working with community members to create and sustain UACS provides a powerful means for universities to advance teaching, research, learning, and service, as well as the civic development of their students.

The Netter Center’s UACS programs in West Philadelphia include children and families at Comegys School (grades K-8), Hamilton School (K-8), Lea School (K-8), Robeson High School, Sayre High School, and West Philadelphia High School. UACS programming focuses on improving literacy, STEM, health and nutrition, social-emotional learning and mental wellness, arts and culture, sports and recreation, college access and career readiness, and neighborhood development. In addition to school-day partnerships, UACS programs operate before and after traditional school hours, including weekends and summers, for student, family, and community programs, such as adult education, recreation, and career development, as well as cultural events.

Netter Center UACS staff collaborate closely with each school and its community to help determine and coordinate activities that best serve that community school’s specific needs. UACS staff serve as liaisons between the University and the school, as well as between school day teachers and the after-school program. UACS programs are connected to the core mission of the university through Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) and other forms of community-engaged scholarship, in which service is integrated with research, teaching, and learning, and academic expertise is brought together with the expertise of the community. Netter Center staff coordinate and supervise the university’s academic and co-curricular partnerships at UACS, including thousands of Penn students engaged through ABCS courses, internships, community service work-study and volunteer opportunities. Netter’s UACS programs and initiatives are funded through government grants, private gifts, and university support.

High school interns teaching nutrition education at Lea Elementary

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Penn ABCS students in Community Physics Initiative course teach at local high school

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Penn student and Comegys "cooking crew" student in UACS after school program

DEFINITIONS, CORE PRINCIPLES, AND KEY ELEMENTS

The Netter Center’s UACS work is rooted in a definition of a community school developed initially in John Dewey’s 1902 essay, The School as Social Center. The UACS approach builds upon and extends Dewey’s idea by highlighting the central role of universities and connecting the work to the academic core of the school and the university.

Definition of a community school

    A Community School

• is a comprehensive neighborhood center that educates, engages, and serves, not only children, but all members of the community in which the school is located
• educates students for democratic citizenship and serves as a catalyst for community change
• is based on democratic partnerships at and through the school
• contributes to improved student learning and development through real-world community problem solving
• contributes to improved community wellbeing, including physical, behavioral, and social health, as well as environmental conditions.

Core principles of a community school

• Public schools can function as environment-changing institutions. They can become the strategic centers of broadly based local partnerships that engage a wide variety of community organizations and institutions, as well as become hubs of services, recreation, and education that genuinely engage students, families, and neighbors.
• When schools play this innovative role, they function as community institutions par excellence. They provide a decentralized, democratic, community-based response to rapidly changing community circumstances. In this process, they help young people learn better through democratic action-oriented, collaborative, real-world problem solving.
• Democratically solving complex, community-identified problems advances knowledge and learning at all levels, K-16+.
• Moreover, for the neighborhood school to function as a community school, it needs additional human resources and support. The Netter Center emphasizes university-assisted because universities constitute strategic sources of broadly based, comprehensive, sustained support for community schools.

Definition of a University-Assisted Community School (UACS)

A University-Assisted Community School (UACS) is a community school in which universities serve as the lead partner in providing broadly based, sustained support. Academic partnerships connect the university’s and school’s curricula through a focus on helping to solve local community-identified problems. This approach is designed to improve both the quality of life in the community and the quality of learning at all levels of schooling.

UACS, as well as community schools in general, are comprehensive neighborhood centers built on partnerships that educate, engage, activate and serve students, their families, and other members of the community. For neighborhood schools to function as community schools, they need additional human resources and support. Universities are particularly well-suited to be a lead partner in the creation, growth, and ongoing development of community schools, including providing academic, human, and material resources.

Key elements of UACS[1]

In supporting universities and colleges around the country in developing UACS, the Netter Center recognizes that local circumstances need to be taken into consideration as programs are developed. These include, but are not limited to, the type of university and its resources, stage of development of university engagement with local schools and communities, readiness at the school site, demographic variations, and the local context of support for community schools. However, we have found that there are key elements of the model that need to be in place, regardless of the specific program activities. These include:

• A central office on campus that coordinates university resources and promotes community engaged scholarship. For this work to grow and be sustained, it must become part of the core operation of the higher education institution(s) rather than remain the effort of a few faculty members. This includes the sustained engagement of diverse stakeholders from across the institution, including faculty, staff, and students at all levels (undergraduate and graduate).
• Academic partnerships that engage multiple university programs and departments and make connections between the university and school curricula through a common focus on helping to solve local community-identified problems.
• A principal who welcomes the partnership and conveys the UACS philosophy of collaborative learning and practice to the school faculty and staff, including through professional development activities.
• UACS staff who are integrated into the school’s operation, including its educational activities, so that planning for and provision of supports for students, teachers, families, and the community are as seamless as possible. This often includes a coordinator at the UACS who serves as the liaison between the school, community, and higher education institution(s).
• Family and community involvement through advisory boards or other mechanisms to help determine what supports are needed and how they should be provided.
• Operation of the school before and after traditional school hours, including weekends and summers, for student, family, and community uses, such as adult education, recreation, and cultural events.

[1] Adapted from Harkavy, I., Balfanz, A., & Sun, F. (2025). Realizing higher education’s democratic promise through university-assisted community schools. In Dresden, J., Ferrara J., Neapolitan, J., and Yendol-Hoppey, D. (eds.) Cambridge handbook of school-university partnerships (pp. 467-482). Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

For more information on specific Netter UACS programs and activities, click on the menu items to the left or view our programs summary, as well as the below publications by Netter Center colleagues that detail the history and development of UACS. 

For more information on the national UACS Network and UACS Regional Training Centers, visit our National and Global Outreach page here.

For Penn students who want to work with UACS programs, check out engagement opportunities HERE.