America has learned from No Child Left Behind that focusing on equity demands that we look and more than test scores alone or they quickly become all that matters. That approach overlooks other aspects of a child's life that are critical. The new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) recognizes this lesson and encourages states and districts to "provide all children significant opportunity to receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education, and to close educational achievement gaps." The law also emphasizes a "well-rounded education," expands the indicators states and districts must report or be accountable for to include measures of school quality and compels leaders to examine conditions for learning and resource inequities. In short, the new law encourages schools to educate the whole child--and the community schools strategy with its emphasis on deep stakeholder engagement--offers a framework to meet this challenge. This paper proposes community schools as a strategy for school improvement; however the Institute for Educational Leadership, and the Coalition for Community Schools see all schools as community schools regardless of their academic standing in an accountability system. Rather than a reform, the community school is a vision for all schools--high or low-performing, urban or suburban or rural. This brief examines community schools at the school level. The ultimate goal, however is to build a system of community schools across a district. Where this occurs, districts and communities have built trust and are engaging in regular conversations about how to create results-focused partnerships that support young people both in and out of school. This brief also outlines how states can support community schools. As state education agency leaders and their peers in other state departments think about how to build and scale community schools, they should keep in mind that it is not a new program. Rather, they should build on the strengths that exist in schools and communities, and align current and new resources, including people, organizations, and funding-toward a common vision of shared ownership for results. In this way, schools are building a strategy and vision that will endure, and will benefit not only students, families and communities now, but many more in generations to come. [This report was written with the assistance of Martin Blank and Reuben Jacobsen.]