This StoryMap investigates the importance of community schools and their response in addressing the needs of students in Dundalk, MD. While community schools offer a robust model for addressing the inequities faced by students and their families by providing wrap-around services, it is imperative to contextualize how poverty and broader systemic issues affect the lives of students.
Community schools play a vital role in positively impacting the lives of students, their families, and their communities. Community school coordinators learn the wants and needs of their students and families and hold deep knowledge of the social, cultural, and economic dynamics on the ground. However, coordinators must recognize broader challenges, such as economic, racial, and social histories that shape students’ lives. This broader awareness can influence school and district-level decisions to implement meaningful changes that address the inequities students face throughout the education system.
Despite the strengths of community schools, they are tasked with alleviating systemic issues beyond their control. Community schools work on a local level, day to day, providing essential resources for students and their families—from food assistance, parenting classes, extracurricular activities, to much more. However, community schools cannot resolve structural issues such as housing instability, inadequate transportation infrastructure, and limited food accessibility.
Dundalk exemplifies these dynamics. The area was fundamentally shaped by the reliance on local industries, like Bethlehem Steel Co., to provide essential services such as housing, healthcare, and transportation. As industries dwindled, so did the services they provided, intensifying poverty and leaving schools to meet the needs of residents.
This project provides context for these broader dynamics by investigating racial demographic shifts, housing trends, and access to childcare. Understanding communities from both micro and macro levels is imperative to anticipating and responding to student challenges. Long-term success requires policy changes and collaboration across all sectors.
Systemic challenges require systemic responses.
