Local school systems are important elements of the community not only because they serve its members but because they are of the community, perhaps schools are the community's most visible element in today's world.
The basic service of the public schools has pretty much been limited to teaching. School sports have grown out the schools' ventures into recreation. Therefore, these have become central to most of the activities of our young.
European cultures have added a segment for the care for children from birth to school age. Therefore, the community responsibility for children is fully met.
With or without fulfillment of the role for pre-school aged children, the important role of education in the United States rests mainly with the States and to be financed mainly through the State and with whatever funds it can garner from our national government.
The education and social aspects of the school falls directly within the function of community. This activity perhaps denotes the community's cerebral point or neural center. .
Another important element of community is made up of the long-term residents, those grandparents of the school children and other members of the community of that age. Do they require another community agency similar to the school system or an extension of the local school function that re-enforces this cerebral point?
It seems that the more normal evolutionary process is that the school involves itself with the elderly, at least at first, to see how that works out.
The school could then become both the central point for children and older adults, but also the organic center for the evolution of the neighborhood and community.
