Convened by UNITE-LA, LAUSD, and UTLA
LAUSD Community Schools Initiative (CSI) is rooted in a social justice theory of change, aiming to ensure every student graduates prepared to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of their social, economic, racial, gender, or ethnic background. The CSI aims to transform systems to support and enhance culturally competent, restorative, joyful, and holistic learning environments for all LAUSD students and families. Central to the CSI is the Community Schools Steering Committee (CSSC), a deliberative, collaborative body representing key partners including LAUSD, UTLA, students, parents, and regional and national community partners to advance and sustain the community schools movement.
Since 2019, UNITE-LA has supported the scaling and sustainability of the community schools model within LAUSD as a key priority of the L.A. Compact. UNITE-LA serves as the primary Community Schools Steering Committee (CSSC) convener and project manager, leading strategic development, advocacy, and systems transformation. UNITE-LA also co-leads subcommittee development, vets and formalizes partnerships with local government agencies and community-based organizations to meet the needs of community schools, and supports CSI’s recruitment and expansion on behalf of the District. Community Schools are founded on the belief that quality, equitable public schooling is a fundamental civil and human right. While each school and district has unique attributes, they share a commitment to centering schools as community hubs. Through strong partnerships among administrators, parents, teachers, and communities, community schools embrace the “whole child” approach, champion shared responsibility for students' well-being, and address local needs in a culturally responsive manner.
The Community Schools framework is an evidence-based strategy for school transformation aimed at improving student learning, strengthening families, and building healthier communities, especially in high-need, under-resourced schools. Four core values operationalize the framework:
- Racially Just, Relationship-Centered Spaces
- Shared Power
- Classroom-Community Connections
- A Focus on Continuous Improvement
The values inform key pillars, conditions, commitments, and proven practices at the heart of the community schools strategy, altogether creating the conditions for children to learn, grow, and thrive.
LAUSD CSI has evolved from a rich history of local efforts and experiences. In 2017, LAUSD passed the board resolution Embracing Community Schools Strategies, which established a Community Schools Implementation Team (CSIT) comprised of business, education, community, and civic partners. The team gathered extensive community input and learnings, developing a roadmap and list of benchmarks to guide the community schools implementation process within the District. As part of the effort, LAUSD and UTLA, signing partners of the L.A. Compact, brought forward a recommendation to the Compact Stewardship Group–convened by UNITE-LA–to endorse community schools as a priority strategy in their collective impact.
In 2019, the Los Angeles teacher strike resulted in an agreement to pilot 30 designated community schools within LAUSD. UTLA’s bargaining agreement secured $12 million in funding community schools development. The District officially launched the CSI, approving the first cohort of 17 community schools in 2019. The CSSC’s goals include capacity building, expansion, sustainability, and school transformation, comprising 16 LAUSD- and UTLA-appointed members:
- Resourcing: Ensuring adequate resources and best practices to support CSI’s growth.
- Community School Selection: Supporting outreach and recruitment of new schools and overseeing the application/selection process.
- Continuous Learning and Improvement: Receiving regular progress reports on implementation, including highlights, challenges to success, and outcomes of the CSI in order to inform continuous improvement of the initiative.
- Awareness and Advocacy: Sharing the successes and learnings with stakeholders.
Building on the CSSC’s efforts, several pivotal developments between 2020 to 2021 have been instrumental in advancing the CSI. In 2020, the Board passed the Charting Progress and Expanding Support for Community Schools resolution, which provided crucial funding for sustaining and expanding community schools. The subsequent 2021 resolution, Sustaining, Deepening, and Expanding the District’s Community Schools Initiative, further committed additional funding to increase the number of community schools to 70 by 2025, prioritized BSAP schools in the selection process, and supported infrastructure through full-time staff. And, in 2023, UTLA’s collective bargaining agreement with LAUSD included a commitment to expanding infrastructure and funding until the 2025-26 school year.
Since the launch of the CSI in 2019, LAUSD has allocated nearly $46 million and the CSSC has secured over $90 million in California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP) Implementation Grants. Presently, eight new Cohort Five community schools will join the initiative in the 2024-25 school year, bringing the total to 63, and moving closer to the goal of 70 designated community schools by 2025.
In addition to the shift in resource flows, the CSI continues to shift practices, relationships, and connections to transform education at our CSI schools, as demonstrated through the following highlights.
Impact and Achievements / Successes as of 2023:
- Cohort one schools experienced growth in positive responses from parents and community members across the last three years, exceeding cohort 1 comparison schools and rates Districtwide. As a result of Cohort one and Cohort two successes:
- Teacher Collaboration: A six percent increase in teachers who feel their school offers collaborative opportunities, from 54 percent in 2021 to 60 percent in 2022.
- Parent Engagement: Increased parent inclusion in decision-making, with a six percent rise among high school parents and a four percent rise among middle school parents.
- Student Enrollment: A two percent increase in student enrollment in 2023, as compared to the prior year.
- Attendance and Absenteeism: A six percent growth in attendance and a ten percent decrease in chronic absenteeism in 2023.
- Academic Improvement: Growth in Smarter Balanced Assessment scores in math, with third to fifth graders showing a 7.1-point increase and sixth to eighth graders a 3.2-point increase.
- Project-Based Learning: After implementing project-based learning in CSI high schools, 22 percent of students completed CTE pathways, compared to 19.7 percent in LAUSD.
- Early Literacy: 65 percent of Kinder to second grade students met early literacy goals by the end of the year 2023.
- College Enrollment: A five percent increase in college enrollment among high school seniors, compared to LAUSD’s 3.6 percent growth.
- Educator Training: 550 CSI educators trained in anti-racist, anti-bias frameworks, as of Spring 2024.