School-based Student and Family Services: Community and Bureaucracy

The recent movement to integrate social services into schools to serve at-risk students is hampered by the proliferation of highly specialized human services. Each had different organizational approaches, one bureaucratic and the other communal. A study examined the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools' (CORS) data on 24 restructured schools to assess the impact of school organization (rather than specific restructuring features) on special programs that provide social, health, and career-development services for students at risk. Two schools from the CORS data were selected for indepth study: a middle school and a high school. A conclusion is that simply adding school-improvement services to bureaucratically organized schools is unlikely to prove effective. A focused vision and shared responsibility appear to be essential to building school community. (Contains 11 references.) (LMI)