In Calif., The Clock Is Ticking On Community Schools

By Michael Matsuda, EdSource

April 4, 2023

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature placed an unprecedented 4.1 billion dollar 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.

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