The Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools Department of Community Education & Services advocates the creation of opportunities for community members, individuals, schools, businesses, and public and private organizations to become partners in addressing community needs.

Community Education and Services in Hewlett-Woodmere has three basic components:

• Lifelong Learning
  • Implementing the principle that learning continues throughout life.
  • Providing formal and informal learning opportunities.
  • Offering programs and services for all community members, often in an intergenerational setting.
• Community Involvement
  • Promoting a sense of civic responsibility.
  • Providing leadership opportunities for community members.
  • Including diverse populations in all aspects of community life.
  • Encouraging democratic procedures in local decision making.
• Efficient Use of Resources
  • Using school and community physical, financial, and human resources to address the community's needs.
  • Reducing duplication of services by promoting collaborative effort.

Principles of Community Education

Community education offers local residents and community agencies and institutions the opportunity to become active partners in providing educational opportunities and addressing community concerns. It is based on the following principles.

• Lifelong Learning: Education is viewed as a birth-to-death process and everyone in the community — individuals, businesses, public and private agencies — shares in the responsibility of educating all members of the community and providing lifelong learning opportunities for learners of all ages, backgrounds, and needs
• Self-Determination: Local people have a right and a responsibility to be involved in determining community needs and identifying community resources that can be used to address those needs.
• Self-Help: People are best served when their capacity to help themselves is acknowledged and developed. When people assume responsibility for their own well-being, they build independence and become part of the solution.
• Leadership Development: The training of local leaders in such skills as problem solving, decision making, and group process is an essential component of successful self-help and improvement efforts.
• Institutional Responsiveness: Public institutions exist to serve the public and are obligated to develop programs and services that address continuously changing public needs and interests.
• Integrated Delivery of Services: Organizations and agencies that operate for the public good can meet their own goals and better serve the public by collaborating with organizations and agencies with similar goals.
• Decentralization: Services, programs, and other community involvement opportunities that are closest to people's homes have the greatest potential for high levels of public participation. Whenever possible, these activities should be available in locations with easy public access.