In February 2024, the L.A. Unified Community Schools Steering Committee (CSSC) finalized the selection and designation of eight schools to join the fifth Community Schools Initiative (CSI) cohort, including 24th Street Elementary School, Charnock Elementary School, Cheremoya Elementary School, Coliseum Elementary School, Hancock Park Elementary School, Woodland Hills Academy Middle School, Public Service Community School at Diego Rivera Learning Center, and Lexington Primary Center. The designation supports collective efforts to achieve L.A. Unified's expansion goal of 70 community schools by 2025.

As a CSSC convener, UNITE-LA supported the district with completing the 2023-24 California Community School Partnership Program (CCSPP) implementation grant in early spring, which included a proposal to support the newly designated Cohort 5 community schools. In April, the California Department of Education selected the LAUSD CSI as one of the CCSPP grantees, awarding $8.5 million over five years. Funding will advance goals aligned with Community Schools values and pillars, focusing on:

• Staffing for comprehensive community schools;
• Expanding informal and formal partnerships to enhance school community assets and target priorities and needs;
• Providing targeted professional development on collaborative leadership and shared decision-making for administrators and community schools implementation teams;
• Implementing equitable, humanizing and healing classroom environments through educator training on equitable grading and instruction and the Joyful Disruption Framework; and
• Enhancing project- and community-based learning educator training to strengthen classroom-community connections via pathways such as CTE, Linked Learning and work-based learning.

UNITE-LA is excited to integrate more LAUSD schools into the CSI cohort, amplifying the initiative's regional impact.

For more information, please reach out to Jenny Vu, Director of Education Systems Strategy, at [email protected].