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Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature placed an unprecedented $4.1 billion bet on community schools last year. Their goal is to transform K-12 schools into educational and social service hubs in low-income communities that drive improved student and family outcomes.
The simplified theory of change for community schools is that when schools provide support to the whole child and their families, and build strong partnerships with community organizations and businesses, student learning outcomes will improve, particularly in under-resourced, marginalized communities.
However, all school districts must plan for a time when the money for community schools runs out and search for permanent funding streams to support our whole child learning infrastructure. Long term, this sustained funding will have to come from multiple sources, so it’s important that school district leaders begin to strategize on this issue with key allies in the community — from local government to nonprofits and from foundations to corporate allies. It will require an all-hands-on-deck approach to maintain our robust support of students and families.
To achieve institutional funding, we believe the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) process and California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) offer an opportunity to develop a plan for all schools to become community schools by integrating these strategies into the general fund.
Community schools should not be the exception but the norm: All schools should focus on career education and community partnerships, civic-participation, parent education, community issues and attention to the whole child. If that foundation is in place, then community schools won’t need to panic when their five-year grants disappear.
Last year, Anaheim Union High School District was selected to receive more than $23 million dollars over five years for 13 schools (out of 19 total). Moreover, we have recently been designated as a California Community School “Deep Dive Site” along with West Contra Costa Unified and Shasta County Office of Education. This means other school districts will use the Anaheim Union model to improve their community schools systems and strategies.
We are fortunate in Anaheim Union, though, that our board of trustees has already invested in a number of community school provisions for all our schools based on recommendations that came out of the LCAP process before we received the state’s new funding.
Our district’s approach to community schools is rooted in the original intention of the LCFF and LCAP: to create more nimble and autonomous school districts that elevate student, parent, staff, and community voices in recommending funding priorities.
Since 2014, Anaheim Union has focused on the following goals using the whole child and community engagement strategies:
We know this whole child and community engagement approach works because we have seen improved student outcomes over the past eight years in almost all of our target areas — from student enrollment to college persistence and from reduced behavior challenges to increased completions rates of the A-G courses required for admission to the state’s universities.
We also know that school improvement is never finished, and we need to keep improving our instructional strategies. Through the enhanced community schools funding, we are working on furthering these transformational practices including: developing parent civic engagement capacities, better connecting classroom instruction to community issues including food deserts and sustainable practices, addressing targeted chronic student attendance challenges, and developing better accountability metrics around whole child instruction through integration with our learning management system.
Transforming schools is not easy, and we applaud the state’s bold investment in community schools. School transformation requires vision, resources, innovation, collaboration, patience and persistence. The investment in community schools is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for educators to boost the learning and life trajectories of all our students and their families, and we need to rise to the challenge to meet these high expectations.
The clock is ticking.
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Michael Matsuda is Superintendent of Anaheim Union High School District.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
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Comments (5)
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David Kakishiba 1 year ago1 year ago
Great leadership in support of a system-wide community school approach
Jim 1 year ago1 year ago
This is a very concerning statement "Shifted our North Star for learning outcomes to career preparedness and civic readiness and away from simply focusing on standardized test results." I'm extremely curious how they can get "increased completions rates of the A-G courses required for admission to the state’s universities" without test scores going up. It seems that while the students are not showing any advance on reading and math they are making huge advances in "Communication, Critical … Read More
This is a very concerning statement
“Shifted our North Star for learning outcomes to career preparedness and civic readiness and away from simply focusing on standardized test results.”
I’m extremely curious how they can get “increased completions rates of the A-G courses required for admission to the state’s universities” without test scores going up.
It seems that while the students are not showing any advance on reading and math they are making huge advances in “Communication, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Creativity, and Compassion”. How they know this? Well they can see it in their internal LMS system, whatever that means. It may not mean anything.
Replies
Michael Matsuda 1 year ago1 year ago
Jim, thank you for your concerns and hopefully I can clarify them. First of all, we take state assessments very seriously and our students are scoring at or better in ELA/Math scores than districts with similar demographics. We do not spend time on "interim assessments" or district benchmark assessments. Our teachers focus on creating rigorous but engaging real-world problem solving experiences aligned to the state standards. Moreover, many districts are only focused … Read More
Jim, thank you for your concerns and hopefully I can clarify them. First of all, we take state assessments very seriously and our students are scoring at or better in ELA/Math scores than districts with similar demographics. We do not spend time on “interim assessments” or district benchmark assessments. Our teachers focus on creating rigorous but engaging real-world problem solving experiences aligned to the state standards. Moreover, many districts are only focused on test scores in the two subjects tested and are not offering a full, robust, engaging curriculum including science, social studies, world language, dual credit opportunities and career pathways. Our pathways created in partnership with industry and community colleges include: Cyber Security, Biotech, Artificial Intelligence and an Incubator Lab.
With respect to traditional metrics, our A-G rates have risen from 35% to 52% district-wide over six years. Our graduation rates have risen from 86% to 91%. In addition, our longitudinal data from UC Irvine, our main UC feeder in Orange County, has shown that AUHSD students outperform all other districts in persistence rates (98%) and have the highest cumulative GPAs.
Ricardo Sanchez 5 months ago5 months ago
That’s nice and all, but the reality is that the district hired sociopaths to do everything they can to try and pump the graduation numbers up as much as possible and doing that by any means possible. I should know I was a former student at Anaheim.
Mr. Lara 1 year ago1 year ago
Hello Jim, that is a great question you pose. "How do you get increased completion rates of A-G courses required for admission to the state universities" without test scores going up. I have been an admissions reader for over 10 years at UCLA and I can tell you that this is the very reason that universities like UCLA have been moving away from test scores as an indicator of student success. Studies have shown that … Read More
Hello Jim, that is a great question you pose. “How do you get increased completion rates of A-G courses required for admission to the state universities” without test scores going up.
I have been an admissions reader for over 10 years at UCLA and I can tell you that this is the very reason that universities like UCLA have been moving away from test scores as an indicator of student success. Studies have shown that test scores are a poor indicator of college success and I would argue from success in life in general. I applaud the State of California for recognizing the need for teaching the “Whole Child” and providing for community schools. I also applaud Supt. Matsuda and AUHSD for moving in this direction and thinking long-term about how to sustain this work moving forward.
One thing you do bring up that we do need to look at as we rightly move away from test scores is a standardized way to measure, “Communication, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Creativity, and Compassion” that we can use across the state. But, that would be another article altogether.