Initiatives / School on the Move Prize / Building a Coherent Community Hub School Strategy in Boston

Building a Coherent Community Hub School Strategy in Boston

By sharing the stories of how schools improve, we hope to help more schools make significant progress for their students.

Gardner Pilot Academy (GPA) was the winner of the 2022 School on the Move Prize. GPA is a Boston Community Hub school located in the neighborhood of Allston. Their Hub School model, which they have been implementing and refining for over 30 years, leverages partnerships to remove non-academic barriers to learning. GPA works with 30+ community partners during school day, after-school, and in the summer to provide over half of students with thousands of hours of extended learning time.

This report seeks to highlight the structures, practices, and tools that have helped GPA realize the vision of a Community Hub School in support of student and family outcomes. It draws on insights from national research on community schools as well as decades of learning and refinement. It also includes work from two recent retreats focused on defining overall Hub Team goals and naming individual strategies and actions for each Hub Team member.

The purpose of this resource is to help Community Hub School Coordinators, school leaders, and others implementing a full-service community school model reflect on key components to align a Community Hub School strategy with a school’s improvement goals. Five components are presented with examples and visuals, and template documents are linked for future use and adaptation. In addition, recommendations are provided with a range of entry points, recognizing that each school has a unique context to consider.