Community School Teams

For 30 years Community Schools have played an important role in the Vancouver Board of Education to meet the needs of neighbourhoods by providing after school programs and services to children and their families.

Beginning in 2004, the Vancouver Board of Education implemented a new and innovative structure referred to as “Community School Teams (CST)” based on a “hub” model.

Each team includes a Community Schools Coordinator, Teacher, Youth and Family Worker and Programmer(s). These teams of professionals work in one or more ”hubs” or “families of schools”, that is secondary schools and the neighbouring elementary schools, to deliver evidence based in-school and out-of-school time programs and services.

The CST are funded by an annual CommunityLINK grant from the Ministry of Education and the work of the CST is reported to Board Trustees and Ministry officials annually.

In the past six years, the progress and success of the CST has been overwhelmingly positive. Over 145,000 program spaces were filled by students in the 2009-2010 school year. Through evidenced based strategies, student participants were supported through these programs to improve their academic achievement, social and emotional development, and school and community engagement.