Our Story
Over the past six years, FLX Community Schools has existed as a gathering of professionals to provide a regional spark for the development of Community Schools thinking and organized a model recognized by NYSUT on their FACT Sheet:
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Culturally Responsive
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Trauma-Informed
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Community Schools
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Continuum of Evidence-Based and Restorative Practices
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Multi-Tiered System of Supports
One District (Lyons CSD) received a Community Schools grant from NYS that reignited work from Sodus CSD, started by a Safe Schools Healthy Students grant.
A couple of years later, Medicaid reform dollars propelled four Wayne County districts down the journey toward full-service community schools.
Then Sodus won a national US Dept of Ed Full Service Community Schools grant, and the pandemic blanketed the nation with an epic challenge that proved the grit and usefulness of Community Schools Strategies.
When FLX Community Schools started, there were a handful of schools working towards being Full Service Community Schools in the region. Now, there are dozens.
We started with regional one-day events, then we did a conference that brought together representatives from over 22 counties… now in April, that conference will be statewide and held in Troy (save the date! April 17-18).
There was one community schools consortium, and now Monroe County, Seneca County, Ontario County, and others are starting countywide ecosystems to support Community Schools.
Community Schools is a movement. Thank you for being part of the movement.
