Our Mission
To create inclusive highly performing pre-K-12 full-service community schools (FSCS) by providing educators and policymakers with up-to-date research-based information and strategies
About Us
PhD: Social Sciences, Policy, and Educational Practice/MA: Sociology, Stanford University; BA: Urban Affairs with Secondary Education Certification in Social Studies, Barnard College/Columbia University
Mavis Sanders, Senior Research Scholar of Black Children and Families at Child Trends, leads an applied research agenda that advances racial equity and social justice. Before joining Child Trends in 2021, Dr. Sanders served as professor of education and affiliate professor in the doctoral program in language, literacy, and culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). She also served as the inaugural director of UMBC’s Sherman Center for Early Learning in Urban Communities from 2017 to 2021.
Prior to her tenure at UMBC, Dr. Sanders was a researcher and faculty member at Johns Hopkins University for 16 years, where she served as Founding Director of the Leadership for School, Family, and Community Collaboration (now Urban Education) graduate certificate program and Assistant Director of the National Network of Partnership Schools.
Committed to improving educational outcomes for underserved youth through research on school, family, and community partnerships, Dr. Sanders has published over 60 journal articles, book chapters, and books on how schools and districts develop and scale up their partnership programs, the effects of home, school, and community collaboration on African-American students’ school success, and community engagement in schools.
Claudia Galindo
PhD, Educational theory and policy and comparative international education (dual title) with a minor in demography; Penn State University. BA: Major in Humanities and Psychology. Emphasis in Social Psychology; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
Claudia Galindo is an associate professor in the education policy program at the University of Maryland, College Park. She investigates underserved students’ school experiences and their academic and social-emotional learning. Additionally, she has researched race and educational stratification in Peru and family, school, and community collaborations in England. Her interdisciplinary research also investigates key mechanisms in families and schools that may perpetuate or ameliorate inequalities.
Dr. Galindo’s publications include over fifty journal articles, book chapters, books, and research/policy reports.
Before joining the University of Maryland, she was an associate professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a postdoctoral student at Johns Hopkins University. Galindo was also a researcher at the Educational Ministry of Peru examining school improvement and educational quality.
Galindo also works closely with community-based organizations, including Casa de Maryland and Centro Sol, to support Latinx families and students navigate the complexities of the U.S. educational system.
While at UMBC, Sanders and Galindo initiated a collaboration to combine their common interests in school, family, and community partnerships and mixed methods research. Galindo brought extensive experience working with Latinx communities. Sanders brought the same experience with African American students and families.
Since 2011, they have individually and collaboratively examined the role of schools, families, and community partners in improving educational outcomes for underserved students, with a particular focus on African American and Latinx children and adolescents. Sanders and Galindo use interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks to study factors that support or inhibit the successful implementation of school, family, and community partnerships, especially within the context of full-service community schools.
Together they have authored over 10 publications on full-service community schools, including a recently published book, Reviewing the Success of Full-Service Community Schools in the US: Challenges and Opportunities for Students, Teachers, and Communities by Routledge Press. Much of their research has been generously funded by the Spencer Foundation.