Community Schools
- Jessica Brown
- Sep 24, 2024
- 4 min read
Originally championed by late education activist Joy Dryfoos, “community schools” are presented as hubs for “academics, health and social services, youth and community development and community engagement.” Instead of focusing on academic learning alone, these schools become a central repository for students to access community partners such as counselors, medical professionals, and more. According to the Coalition for Community Schools, such institutions foster family engagement and student success: “Students are healthy – physically, socially, and emotionally; students live and learn in a safe, supportive, and stable environment, and communities are desirable places to live.”
Under the Hood of Community Schools
While the stated goals sound positive, we have many concerns about what lies beneath the surface of the Community Schools Movement. Education researcher Kelly Ske describes the concept of community schools as “a deliberate transformation of schools into access points for ideological and medical services that usurp constitutionally protected parental rights, expand government authority over children, and align seamlessly with the policy priorities of Planned Parenthood and its advocacy ecosystem.”
Joy Dryfoos, principal architect of the Community Schools Movement, joined Planned Parenthood in the late 1960s to work at the organization’s research and policy arm, the Guttmacher Institute. She stayed there for fifteen years, conducting research and writing articles on family planning. While there, Dryfoos developed an idea that would later become the blueprint for community schools. Using grant money, Dryfoos and her colleagues would “go into a community and develop a plan for coordinated family planning.” The goal was to “figure out where all the family planning programs should be and centralize the administering and the supplies…[to] get the delivery of the services out to the neighborhood.” Eventually, Dryfoos and her team accomplished that goal in communities across the U.S.
Later, Dryfoos served as chairwoman of the Center for Population Options, which is now Advocates for Youth, an organization that promotes “youth sexual rights.” According to Ske, those “rights” include confidential services for minors and the elimination of parental consent laws. Advocates for Youth helped to launch what is now the School-Based Health Alliance, a coalition that “supports so-called sexual and reproductive health services to minors on campus.”
Dryfoos eventually co-founded the Coalition for Community Schools in partnership with the Institute for Educational Leadership.
WSCC: Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child
The Community Schools model puts forward the idea of “Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child” — or WSCC. Used as a framework by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, WSCC emphasizes connections between academics and healthcare. While many pillars of the framework appear commendable, the underlying ideology of WSCC is of concern — as is the ease this model lends to bypassing parental consent and involvement.
The WSCC model reframes schools as more than centers for academic instruction. Instead, they become hubs for a wide range of social and health services connected to government systems and outside providers. Through school-based health and mental health programs, students may interact with medical or counseling personnel in settings where parental involvement is reduced or absent.
This “Whole Child” approach shifts the focus away from academic formation alone and expands the school’s influence into other areas, including personal health and moral development. As a result, schools may serve as entry points for counseling on sensitive issues such as sexuality, gender identity, and pregnancy — sometimes without clear parental knowledge or consent.
Biblical Foundation: Parental Responsibility
Scripture is clear that parents, not institutions, bear the primary responsibility to guide their children’s upbringing. Parents are called to teach truth, shape character, and protect their children’s health and innocence according to God’s design (Prov. 22:6, Eph. 6:4, Deut. 6:6-7, Ps. 78:4-7).
The Community Schools and WSCC framework expands the role of schools beyond academics, positioning them as providers of healthcare, counseling, and social services. In practice, this model reduces transparency and limits parental involvement. Rather than reinforcing the family’s central role, community schools may function as intermediaries between children and outside systems, assuming responsibilities that biblically belong to parents. As Ske writes, “This is not a partnership with families — it is a substitution for them.”
While the Community Schools Movement pushes K-12 institutions to take on broader social and medical responsibilities, data show that many school systems in the U.S. are already struggling to achieve successful academic outcomes. Literacy, math proficiency, and basic discipline are lacking, raising important questions about the purpose of today’s public schools. Are they about academics or ideological training? Is the goal of community schools to support families, or gradually to replace them?
Keeping Schools Accountable to Parents
Education is meant to equip children with knowledge and wisdom while supporting — not supplanting — the family. When schools expand into areas of healthcare, counseling, and moral formation without parental oversight, they encroach on biblical boundaries. Parents are the primary stewards of their children’s well-being, and any educational model must respect and reinforce that responsibility. For the sake of both academic excellence and biblical faithfulness, schools should be accountable to families, transparent in their practices, and focused on their core mission of education.
