Felecia Chambers is the community school coordinator at Mount Gilead Elementary School in Montgomery County, a Title I school about 50 miles east of Charlotte. She walked through the school’s resource center, in a large room just beside the main entrance.
“Welcome to Gator Bridge! This is the FRC, the Family Resource Center,” she said. “This is where I say it all started.”
It was packed with school supplies, racks of clothing and canned foods — all available for free. A pool table for kids sat near the main entrance. Against a wall stood a washer and dryer, and Chambers strolled over to a massage chair that took a spot next to a laptop and a printer.
“This is our relaxation section, our adult section and information,” Chambers said. “So parents can relax, they can work, they can get information, they can make copies.”
Six Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools will become “Community Schools” in the 2027-28 school year. It’s a framework that aims to get families more involved in their local public schools and turn them into community hubs as well as places where their children learn. Mount Gilead Elementary is one of about 50 official community schools in North Carolina. It offers a window into what the model might look like once it’s up and running.
Each school looks a little different. But they have a few things in common. A community school starts by hiring a coordinator — in this case, Chambers. She helped select an advisory board made up of local community members. Each campus develops a resource center like Gator Bridge.
But what each resource center has depends on what each school needs. The community school model unites parents, educators, students and community members to figure out what families need — and how they can provide it.
“Every school has similar structures in place, similar systems, similar resources, and each school leverages those in unique ways based on the strengths, assets, and the needs of that school community,” said Dan Kimberg, a director of the North Carolina Community Schools Coalition.
The coalition is a network of the state’s community schools. The CMS schools set to join the coalition:
- Lake Wylie Elementary School
- Starmount Academy of Excellence
- River Oaks Academy
- Eastway Middle School
- Martin Luther King Jr. Middle
- Harding University High
Other CMS programs support students — the similarly named organization Communities In Schools, for instance, has coordinators who work with students who need help at many CMS schools. But community schools follow a specific model that administrators and community members develop and implement schoolwide.
The CMS school board plans to vote next week to adopt the district’s first-ever family and community engagement policy, under which the six schools — and perhaps more later — can operate under the community schools model.
“Sometimes people feel like our district is too big,” said CMS board member Charlitta Hatch. “The community schools model is really a way to make each school feel small.”
Hatch and fellow board member Shamaiye Haynes have been advocating for the engagement policy. Haynes supports the community schools model because she said she’s seen the barriers that can keep families out of schools. She hopes the selected schools can serve as local hubs that make parents feel welcome.
“There’s so much more that can go on in a school building beyond just regular school hours. And it could look like a variety of things,” Haynes said. “It could be English as a second language. It could be night school for parents to learn to get their GEDs. It could be having things that would benefit the entire family.”
That’s similar to the vision at Mount Gilead Elementary. Parents visit Gator Bridge often. The resource center, which opened in March, regularly holds informational events and engagement nights for families. Officials there say it starts with finding the right coordinator. Someone like Chambers, who has deep ties to the community and strong relationships with local partners. Chambers attended the school and later taught there for 20 years.
“I was a single parent,” Chambers said. “So this space means a lot to me, knowing that I’m, you know, filling some of those gaps that single parents and the struggles that they have, because that’s what a community school is.”
Chambers sits on several area nonprofit boards. She knows the community, and families feel comfortable asking her for help. She also has the connections to make sure Gator Bridge’s shelves are stocked with the help of local partners like the local Mount Gilead Market and the local Dollar General.
“I don’t have to search for money,” Chambers said. “Most of the time, they’re coming to me and say: ‘I have this, I’m going to send you money, I’m going to send you that.’”
Research on community schools suggests that the model can help improve student attendance and achievement. But results can vary with implementation, and no standardized method exists. A 2017 synthesis of more than 140 studies did find that student attendance, behavior and achievement improved at schools with robust programming.
It’s still early for Mount Gilead. But officials say the center is busy, with nearly 1,500 visits from March to September; more than 500 came from parents and other community members. School district officials say it can be difficult to get parents engaged. They hope the community center will continue to encourage them to visit.
Third-grade teacher Chantelle Campbell walks into Gator Bridge one day in September. It’s a down period for her, and she likes to spend her free time here. Sometimes she picks up school supplies. Sometimes she does laundry. Sometimes she has other motives.
“From time to time, I do see parents in here,” Campbell said. “And I do use the opportunity to be like, ‘Hey, I wanted to talk to you about this, but now you’re here. Let’s just have the conversation.’”
One of those parents might be Jessica Tolbert. She stopped in on her way to pick up her sick son. Tolbert says she comes in at least once a week — sometimes to collect supplies, other times to donate items for the center.
“If we need help with utilities, they give us the people to contact,” Tolbert said. “The other day I had to find a notary, and she told me where to go to get a notary. She just has all the answers.”
Maybe not all the answers — but enough, Chambers hopes, to keep people coming in.
