Summer 2025 Research Internship

Overview

The New Jersey Institute for Community Schools (NJICS) launched in March 2025.

The Institute is offering flexible, unpaid internships as opportunities for motivated students to help its leadership team strengthen the Institute’s capacity and resources.

Research interns would work with the NJICS leadership team on a number of timely projects, including:

• Researching and compiling academic literature and specific NJ community school evaluation data to demonstrate the impact of community schools;
• Analyzing publicly-available community school performance data and helping develop a database and reporting system to better inform stakeholders about the role community schools play in our state;
• Helping design a survey about public school partnerships that would be distributed to all New Jersey school districts, as a way of better understanding the role that partnerships play in New Jersey and the appetite for increasing the number of community schools in the state. Research interns will be asked to analyze the survey results and help write a report updating the findings of a 2017 research report.

Most work would be done remotely, with weekly check-ins with one of the Institute’s leaders. Hours are flexible, ranging from 10 to 30 hours per week, and would be negotiated in advance.

How To Apply

Please send a resume and brief cover email detailing your interest and potential availability to NJICS Assessment Committee, care of Dr. Gregory Stankiewicz, Co-Director, NJICS at gregorystankiewicz@verizon.net

Defining Community Schools

Community schools are not specific programs, but an evidence-based approach that envisions public schools as playing a more active role in the betterment of their surrounding communities. 2 Each community school adopts different approaches, but all community schools are unified in the fact that the additional services they provide are designed to meet the unique needs of students, families, teachers and staff who study, live, and work in that specific community. Community schools do so by taking advantage of the services available through partners, prioritized and organized by on-site community school coordinators.

On-site community school coordinators implement a range of services from key practices of community schools. Coordinators oversee outreach to students and families and work alongside a site-based leadership team to focus on the broader needs of students. The approach embodies a whole child model, with a critical emphasis on making schools more welcoming and collaborative for everyone.

About the New Jersey Institute for Community Schools

In 2025, in partnership with the NJ Community Schools Coalition, the Center for Human and Social Development at Saint Elizabeth University launched the New Jersey Institute for Community Schools. The Institute will be a center for partner organizations to support the implementation and expansion of the Community Schools framework to any interested New Jersey PK-12 public schools. For additional information, please see: https://www.steu.edu/meet-seu/centers/hsd/community-schools.html