The Community School movement has evolved in several regions of the world with a common emphasis on strengthening the relationships between schools, families and communities in order to promote social and acedemic development. This summary attempts to capture some of the diverse applications of the CS approach in high, medium and low income countries.

The International Centre of Excellence on Community Schools has described community schools as follows:

Community schools will be different from place to place, but they share common characteristics:

• they use the community as a resource for learning and see themselves at the heart of the community
• they involve parents and acknowledge their role as co-educators
• they use methods and approaches which encourage the active involvement of pupils in their own learning and encourage them to take an active role in the local community
• they work in partnership with other agencies which share a common interest in supporting the wider community in which children grow and learn because they see the connection between health, economic development, community relations and children’s readiness to learn.

The ICES has developed nine standards for community schools that can be used to provide further guidance. The impetus for community schools varies in different societies. In some they are seen as a vehicle for democratisation and in others for raising attainment, but everywhere they will be an essential, and sometimes the only, hub for community development. Whatever the motivation for establishing community schools, we believe that the standards we have devised will be readily understood and accepted as a core set of standards. They are
already being used in nine countries, and other countries are in the process of establishing
the standards in their schools. The standards relate to:

• leadership
  
• partnership
  
• social inclusion
• services
  
• volunteering
  
• lifelong learning
• community development
  
• parent engagement
  
• school culture.
  

The President of Save the Children (USA) in a blog-based article says that " Community schools differ from traditional schools in several respects: they are open longer hours (often well into the evening, on weekends and holidays, and throughout the summer); they offer more services, supports, and opportunities for students and their families; and they bring together an array of partners that share accountability for results. Typically, community schools operate from a framework that can best be described as a "developmental triangle," a model that connects the school's core instructional program to enrichment opportunities during out-of-school time (before and after school and during the summer months) and to a set of services designed to remove barriers to students' learning, such as medical, dental, mental health, and social services. Community schools bring additional human and financial resources into schools and align these resources with the schools' goals for student learning and development".

The US-based Coalition for Community Schools has developed an overview of community schools that is appropriate for schools in high income countries.The CCCS suggests that a community school is both a place and a set of partnerships between the school and other community resources. Its integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development and community engagement leads to improved student learning, stronger families and healthier communities. Schools become centers of the community and are open to everyone – all day, every day, evenings and weekends. Using public schools as hubs, community schools bring together many partners to offer a range of supports and opportunities to children, youth, families and communities. Partners work to achieve these results:

• Children are ready to learn when they enter school and every day thereafter. All students learn and achieve to high standards.
• Young people are well prepared for adult roles in the workplace, as parents and as citizens.
• Families and neighborhoods are safe, supportive and engaged.
• Parents and community members are involved with the school and their own life-long learning.

The CCS has described the conditions necessary for community schools to be effective, better practices and the research documenting the positive impacts of community school approaches and programs in a report (Blank, Melavile & Shaw, 2003) prepared by a panel of experts.

The experience using a community schools approach in low income countries can be better understood by reading a series of reports and papers regarding the CS experience in Africa. In many ways, the involvement of the scarce community resources in these countries is necessary to provide basic education to students and parents in those countries. The research review (Miller-Grandvaux & Yoder, 2002) commissioned by the development agency USAID provides more background information.

Similarly, the community schools approach has been used in middle income countries such as the Ukraine to rebuild or strengthen the quality of education in areas such as early childhood education, inclusion of special needs students and promoting democratic and cultural values. The International Step by Step Association, which has demonstrated how this can be done in its definition of high quality pedagogy available in English and Russian.