Philadelphia is a city in educational crisis. Young people in the foster care and juvenile justice systems have been pushed to the margins because educational systems are not built to address their needs for healing and consistency.

Imagine being moved from your foster home in the middle of the night with time to quickly gather one black trash bag of your things and your medicine gets left behind. Imagine moving to two temporary foster homes in one week and when you finally settle at your third foster home, you have to switch high schools. Imagine being sent far away from your community to residential placement because everyone in your life said this is the last hope for you before jail. Imagine being suspended for disrespecting a teacher because your mother passed away of an overdose and no one was there to check in with you. 

Now imagine trying to learn. Imagine trying to tell yourself that you matter. 

 This is why we built C.B. Community Schools. Recognizing a dire need to create a healing-centered high school for young people in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, C.B. Community Schools launched its first school in 2015. Too many young people in the child welfare system have been pushed out and sent away when what they need is a loving, consistent community. We are the only high school in the nation for young people in the child welfare system.

At C.B. Community Schools we show our students that they matter through LOVE IN ACTION. Our school team does the hard work to ensure that our students are safe and their needs are met. Our students have space to heal and grow. CBCS has a full Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) team available twenty-four hours a day so that our students who have experienced trauma can feel peaceful and have the supports they need to be ready to learn. 

Our education is transparent. We are a competency-based school with small class sizes and special education support. Every student can see what they need to learn and how they are going to get there. Students regain trust in the educational process because they decide their own paths, envision their futures and explore postsecondary opportunities.

At C.B. Community Schools, we create a platform for student agency. Students have a voice and develop that voice to show the world that they matter. We are a true community school collaborating with caregivers, child welfare workers and community partners to ensure that our students have everything they need to be successful in the world. 

We are more than a school.  We are a community. Our students KNOW they matter.