Communities: Community Organizations

Community organizations have served Rhode Island students through a multitude of in-school and after-school programs. Community organizations provide essential links among schools, families, government and other partners. While community organizations are diverse in their structures and missions, all help build strong and contributing citizens. By partnering, community organizations and schools can share human and material resources to help young people successfully learn, stay in school, and prepare for life.

Partnerships between schools and community organizations can provide significant resources for relevant learning opportunities. Community agencies offer a host of educational and social services, that when linked to school programming, become even more effective. Service learning is one example. Through service learning students acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that allow them to be productive, life-long learners.

In order to be most effective in their activities, community organizations must have an institutional understanding of what students in Rhode Island's PK-12 system are expected to know and be able to do in this rapidly changing technological world. The Rhode Island Statewide Curriculum provides images of and resources for high student achievement. Community organizations must be cognizant of how interactions with students, families and schools impact learning.

The Rhode Island Statewide Curriculum is designed to support quality education for all children in Rhode Island and encompasses the key elements of high quality instruction and assessment: student engagement, an environment conducive to learning, access for all students, the use of questions to monitor and promote student understanding, and the support needed for students to make sense of content. One of the main goals of the interactive Rhode Island Statewide Curriculum is to help all partners know that each is vital in contributing to learning and teaching. The Rhode Island Statewide Curriculum demonstrates effective instructional techniques, provides professional development for educators, and offers resources for all who share responsibility in the education of the youth of Rhode Island.

As a member of a community organization, you may use this Web site to:

• Discover the Shared Beliefs that support the process of building this curriculum.
• Access the Grade Level and Grade Span Expectations (GLEs and GSEs) for all grades from kindergarten to grade twelve.
• Refer to the instructional continuums which are designed to more clearly demonstrate the learning involved in the GLEs and GSEs.
  
• View Lesson Plans linked to the GLEs and GSEs.
• View Lesson Video Clips (some from Rhode Island schools), which demonstrate the type of classroom activities used to teach certain skills and concepts.
• View samples of Student Work related to many of these lessons.
• Explore informational documents and PowerPoint presentations.
• Explore Online Learning.
• Access other resources for community organizations as school partners.

Like any research-based educational model, the Statewide Curriculum is dynamic and evolving. All partners are encouraged to identify how they may contribute and participate in order to improve student achievement.

Thank you for visiting the Rhode Island Statewide Curriculum Web site. Your feedback is welcomed.

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