By Mavis Sanders, Photo: Unsplash, Child Trends, March 17, 2022
In Spring 2020, when schools abruptly closed due to COVID-19, millions of children in low-income communities lost access to free and reduced-price meals. Food insecurity and the risk of hunger subsequently increased for these children and their families. Full-service community schools (FSCSs)—schools that integrate social and health services, extended learning opportunities, family and community engagement, and collaborative leadership—were able to effectively provide many families in challenging financial circumstances with meals and other basic needs during the pandemic, illustrating why FSCSs are an important strategy to address poverty in the United States. The objectives and defining elements of FSCSs make them uniquely able to ameliorate conditions of poverty and extend educational opportunities to students who have been systematically marginalized through inadequate policies and societal neglect.
The United States has a clear need for poverty-mitigating interventions like FSCSs. Nationwide, 11.6 million children under age 18 (16% of the total) were living in poverty in 2020. The distribution of children living in poverty highlights the impact of systemic racism (i.e., racial discrimination embedded in the norms and institutions of a society) on child well-being: 28 percent of Black children, 25 percent of Native American/Alaska Native children, and 23 percent of Hispanic/Latino children are living in poverty—nearly three times the rate among White (10%) and Asian and Pacific Islander (9%) children. Poverty harms children in ways that jeopardize their internationally recognized rights, including their right to an education that helps them “fully develop their personalities, talents and abilities.” Too often, schools serving students who live in poverty lack the necessary resources to promote their success. As an equity-oriented strategy, FSCSs aim to disrupt such disparities.
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