BTS brings together Waterbury leadership, parents, youth, and countless dedicated folks who work in our community to achieve equitable change. We strive to empower Waterbury’s youth to become successful in school, career, and life.

We focus on four directions:

• Promote positive social/emotional skills
• Promote early literacy
• Ensure youth graduate from high school on time
• Provide post-secondary education and career access for youth

To do so, BTS facilitates and organizes three monthly Collaborative Action Networks (CANs) and two Think Tanks to infiltrate the rest of our work.

Just like smart phones, community schools have an infrastructure or operating system that makes all the ‘apps’ work in a synchronized manner. A school-site leadership team, often comprised of educators, parents, community partners, and others, is responsible for creating a shared vision for the school, identifying desired results and helping align and integrate the work of partners with the school. A community school coordinator works hand-in-hand with the principal, and is a member of the school leadership team. The coordinator is responsible for building relationships with school staff and community partners, for engaging the families and community residents, and coordinator an efficient delivery of supports to students both inside and outside of the classroom, all day, every day. Data on academic AND non-academic factors drive the work for a community school.