Our Children This Month, April 2022

Reimagining Education in Fresno County: Community Schools

While there will be some differences in how the schools look from community-to-community, there are Four Pillars of Practice that are common to all Community Schools. These Pillars are central to the planning and bring a wide range of community partners together, including parents, to implement the Pillars in their local schools.

No two CS are identical. Each CS builds on local assets and holistically responds to the identified needs of its children and families. Services, for example, might include on-site medical services to reduce the impact of asthma or poor vision, better meeting mental health concerns, or supporting children with other special needs. Programs to address such issues as absenteeism and after-school programs to provide a supervised safe space while parents are working, could expand and enrich learning opportunities. A CS can also provide an opportunity for meaningful parent/community supports, for example, digital literacy training and employment resources.

Strong Research Findings Document the Effectiveness of Community Schools

The evidence of the effectiveness of redesigning a school and building it around the Four Pillars is strong. The RAND Corporation conducted a detailed study (precovid) of CS implementation in New York City from 2017 – 2018. The documented successes were promising. Student attendance increased along with on-time grade progression and high school graduation rates. The RAND analyses also showed a significant reduction in disciplinary incidents for elementary and middle school students and a documented increase in student-reported connectedness to adults and peers. In another study, the Learning Policy Institute in Palo Alto did a survey of a total of 143 studies across the nation. They concluded that “Well-implemented community schools lead to improvement in student and school outcomes and contribute to meeting the educational needs of low-achieving students in high- poverty schools.”

Community School Efforts Are Currently Underway In Fresno  

Fresno County has several CS projects underway. For example:

• Fresno Unified School District (FSUD) has already undergone extensive preliminary work in collaboration with the Fresno Teachers Association to identify and establish initial planning teams comprised of administrators, educators, leaders, teachers, students, parents, and community stakeholders to establish a shared vision for CS. Dr. Linda Hoff has recently been hired to manage the project for FUSD. A grant application is pending before the State Department of Education for planning. Dr. Hoff is a strong believer that engaging families in the process and building trust across the range of collaborating participants is both the most important and biggest challenge going forward.
• Parlier Unified School District (PUSD) has been working for over a year to implement the CS model with much appreciated “thought partner” support from Fresno Cradle to Career (C2C). They have also just submitted a planning grant application to the State Department of Education. The Parlier project has been guided since its inception by Dr. Altagracia Guerrero, Superintendent of PUSD, and is being overseen by Ms. Marlene Peña who has recently joined the Parlier CS team as the Family and Community Empowerment Coordinator. The goal of their project is to build on what already exists. Many key elements were already in place, but Dr. Guerrero found the systems to be fragmented and wanted to weave together a comprehensive approach. CS appears to be a path towards achieving this goal. PUSD plans to start with one junior high and the high school as the focus of the first two years. These two schools will form the experiential basis for then going forward to include the district’’s five additional schools.

Best of All, Funding Is Currently Available for the Creation of Community Schools

Given the research documenting the effectiveness of CS for children and families living in poverty, significant federal, state, and local funding has been earmarked for expanding it. The Legislature recently established the California Community Schools Partnership with a budget of $3 billion and charged it with creating CS schools in high-poverty neighborhoods. They are now accepting applications. These funds are for planning grants of $200,000 for up to 1,437 districts, charter schools and county offices of education. There is also funding for implementation grants of up to $500,000 annually for five years for new and existing CS efforts. In addition, the state budget was structured to allow for incorporation and braiding of multiple California Initiatives into CS efforts, for example, Transitional Kindergarten and state kindergartens, Expanded Learning Opportunities Programs to provide funding for afterschool and summer school enrichment, and numerous other programs to prepare, recruit, retain, and train teachers, administrators, and classified staff in K–12 education. At the Federal level, the Biden Administration is proposing over $443 million (15 times the current level) to expand CS as a strategy in developing comprehensive plans to address poverty. In addition, there are several other sources of federal dollars that can potentially be drawn on to support a local CS effort.

The opportunity to develop CS is fully supported by both C2C and The Children’s Movement of Fresno(TCM). Both school design and school accountability have long been a contentious space with teachers unions, community groups and administrators often at odds. CS is one approach where there is broad consensus between these factions, opening the door to meaningful collaboration between stakeholder groups who wouldn’t normally work together. Of particular interest to TCM is the opportunity presented for Resident Council members, particularly those who are passionate about schools, to engage in meaningful efforts already underway across the County to redesign our schools. The vision is schools that become rich vibrant hubs that holistically support ALL children and their families. Schools with safe and inclusive classrooms featuring high-quality teaching, attention to children with special needs, and a positive school environment for all. 

Resources

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