FOR CELIA MEDINA-OWENS, seeing a fully operational Community School up close and hearing from educators, union leaders and district officials directly involved in it was invaluable.

“We were able to get a common understanding of what community schools could be and how to implement them with all stakeholders,” said Medina-Owens, president of Pittsburg Education Association (PEA), of her and her local’s participation in the inaugural program of the National Community Schools Learning Lab. “We read about and discuss community schools, but to experience it solidified the theory.”

Participants learned about the nuts and bolts of shared governance, among other critical components of community schools, and worked on their own teams’ steering committee structure and plans.

The Learning Lab, hosted by Anaheim Secondary Teachers Association (ASTA) and the Anaheim Union High School District (AUHSD), took place in mid-September. Teams from four other CTA locals — Association of Rowland Educators, Mountain View Teachers Association, San Mateo Elementary Teachers Association and United Teachers of Pasadena — also participated in the two-day Learning Lab.

Medina-Owens attended with key members of her local as well as Pittsburg Unified School District administrators. Similarly, other teams were comprised of local leaders, educators, district superintendents and administrators and in some cases, parents and community partners.

These teams, in fact, represent the collaborative nature of successful community schools, which work through a shared decision-making model. Specifically, community school steering committees at both the district and site levels are composed of multiple stakeholders — all the above, along with students — who have equal voice and input.

The objectives of the Learning Lab, funded with a $750,000, three-year grant to ASTA from NEA’s Great Public Schools initiative, are to give participating teams the fundamental tools to
• build and sustain strong, shared leadership and governance;
• connect and forge alliances with families and community partners;
• recruit and train essential staff;
• develop curriculum that is academically robust and responsive to students’ needs inside and outside the classroom.

The ultimate goal is racially and socially just community schools that support student success and well-being, where students, families, educators and community partners are engaged and invested in their schools and in their communities.

A rundown of the Learning Lab inaugural program:
DAY 1

Participants gathered at AUHSD offices for introductions before Leading & Learning visits — informational tours at either South Junior High or Katella High schools (the Learning Lab will soon offer elementary school tours as well). These campus walks and classroom visits focused on programming related to community schools, as did presentations by staff, administrators, students, parents and community partners.

The Leading & Learning visit to South Junior High included a tour of an entrepreneurial “market” and club run by exceptional students (bottom left) and presentations by educators, staff, students, parents and community members (below).

Every community school is unique in that each school’s students and community have unique needs. South’s community school coordinator Denise Osorio, for example, explained that outreach to parents is not necessarily school-based. “Many of our students and families live on the other side of the city where parking is difficult,” she said. “Parents don’t want to give up their parking spaces. We decided to hold a barbecue in a park in that area, which was very successful [in engaging parents].”

Similarly, the school maintains a dry goods pantry with food and supplies for families but works with community partners to offer fresh produce at various spots that are within walking distance of families’ homes.

In another project, students in art and woodworking classes designed, built and painted benches a calming shade of green, placed around campus where students and others can rest and connect. The benches also bring awareness to mental health, featuring a QR code that takes users to mental health resources.

Afternoon activities included a “station rotation” where participants chose from various topic areas for more intensive discussion, including collaborative leadership practices, community partnerships, sustainable funding/budgeting, harnessing student voice for community problem-solving and civic engagement, community school assets/needs assessment, and centering community-based learning.

DAY 2

Participants met at ASTA offices for an opening panel discussion with AUHSD Community Schools Steering Committee members on committee structure, the process of building consensus and sharing leadership, school board resolutions, and more.

CTA Board Member, CTA/NEA Coordinator and former ASTA President Grant Schuster facilitated the discussion, emphasizing that building trust and “going slow so we can go fast” were essential for the committee.

“At first it was hard to nail down what this was all about,” said ASTA President Geoff Morganstern. “But we knew from the very beginning that we wanted all our educational partners at the table.”

AUHSD Community Schools Director Carlos Hernandez talked about steering committee consensus-building: “Boy, that’s hard,” he said. “But it is so worth it and it’s the right approach. We go farther together.”

A small-group discussion about centering community-based learning.

Separately, MVTA President Leticia Urias, whose team of 16 included the superintendent, three assistant superintendents and eight teacher leads, echoed the challenges. “It has taken a long time to build a relationship with the district and it takes continuous effort on both sides to keep it going. We have labored hard to make sure all partners are at the table and all voices are heard.”

Participants reviewed CTA’s Community Schools 5-Step toolkit along with NEA’s “Five Steps to Kickstarting Community Schools.” Morganstern underscored the importance of codifying community schools in the contract. “Maybe your MOU is imperfect,” he said. “But that’s okay — we did a second MOU to address additional issues.”

Community schools teacher lead Nikki Resch and site coordinator Isabel Tabares-Torres next explained their leadership roles at Gilbert High School, an AUHSD continuation school. While teacher leads are given partial release time (which lets them remain in the classroom and connect directly with students), both they and full-time community school coordinators work with school staff, administrators, students, families and community partners on curriculum, services and much more.

Resch said that community school initiatives such as “deep listening” and civic engagement have had a real impact on students. An example: One educator listened to a student — who is a parent of a baby — explain how the city bus schedule did not mesh with the end of the school day, leaving her to wait for an hour or seek other ways to get her and her baby home. When it became apparent that many students were affected by the bus schedule, Gilbert students worked to gather information, present it to city officials and get the schedule changed.

“Listening to and giving our students the ability to take larger actions has given them a lot of confidence,” Resch said. “There is a lot more dreaming by our kids about what is possible, what they are capable of doing.”

Learning Lab Lead Christie Bettendorf was particularly proud to include an alternative education school in the program mix. “I don’t want that to be overlooked in the discussion — how community schools can be successful in giving alternative education students what they need, which is a second chance.”

At Gilbert and other community schools, she added, “every kid gets a chance to be part of a community, that structure is in place. Kids who went to Gilbert, even for a semester or less, come back to help with orientation, work in the mercadito (market), make documentaries about the school. Community schools have roots, and kids are rooted in their schools.”

Teams spent the final hours collaborating on their own plans for creating and sustaining a Community Schools Steering Committee and community schools.

Learning Lab participants were overwhelmingly positive in their evaluations of the program, and Bettendorf is excited at what’s next. “A Portland [OR] team of 20 is coming for the November session,” she said, joining California teams from Alhambra, Fairfield-Suisun, Pomona and Whittier. A Seattle team of five is lined up. The lab is taking the show on the road, traveling to Washington, DC, in February 2025 and fielding interest from teams in Albany, NY; Baltimore; Jackson, MS; and North Carolina.

Teams who complete the Learning Lab program can participate in the NEA Benchmark Academy, which supports attendees through regular professional learning community meetings, customized trainings, and coaching for local district and site teams. They can also enter NEA’s Community School Implementation Institute, which helps community schools that are completing their needs and assets assessment engage in problem-solving around their priority areas.

What Teams Learned, What They’re Doing

Participating teams’ progress with community school implementation varies widely. The Association of Rowland Educators and district partners, for example, are preparing their first application for state funding. Nine of Pasadena Unified’s 23 schools are community schools — three elementary, three middle and three high schools. Earlier this year, all eight of the Mountain View School District’s schools were awarded state implementation grants. Here are thoughts from local presidents who attended the Learning Lab:

“Experiencing the Learning lab with our district partners was truly powerful. The conversations within our group, the questions answered, the connections made, the new possibilities imagined, and the support offered from the folks in Anaheim and NEA gave us some much-needed calm in the storm. We came out of those two days with a stronger sense of ‘we can do this, and we can take what we are doing well and make it better.’”
—DEREK HOLLINGSWORTH, Association of Rowland Educators

“At the Learning Lab, I saw that Anaheim’s community schools are not test-driven, the curriculum is not based on some tech. Instead, learning is integrated into kids’ lives through authentic projects…. The rest of the team (including administrators and a community partner) saw how the union can be helpful in our district. Not only with integrated supports but also with leveraging all resources — [especially] community school teacher leads. It is hard asking for member release time, but they saw how powerful it is with teacher leads freed up.“
—JONATHAN GARDNER, United Teachers of Pasadena

“Our attendance group was small — just one of our site steering committee members and me — but our greatest takeaway was that we need to have representation of some of our district people to come and hear the same information. The only way that this is going to work is if we are all on the same page.”
—KATHY PRATT, San Mateo Elementary Teachers Assn

“Being able to bring 16 members, including our superintendent, saved MVTA and MVSD months of creative work. We feel better prepared to continue the work because we all had the same experience together. We just received the $11.6 million implementation grant; the assets and needs assessment is next…. MVTA has done school site visits and staff luncheons [to build community schools awareness]. This is why seven out of eight community schools site leads applied for the positions when they were posted — they heard our message and were excited to be part of such an important journey!”
—LETICIA URIAS, Mountain View Teachers Assn.

“It took us from August 2023 to April 2024 to get an MOU. The district didn’t want to negotiate…. Now, we have a relationship; the district is holding community schools meetings at sites — it’s a paradigm shift. All 13 of our schools are classified as community schools, but only 11 got grant funding. The district funded the other two. We used CTA site visit and member engagement grants for release days for PEA community schools committee members to talk to our parents, attend events. We’re still doing one-on-ones with our 615 members.”
—CELIA MEDINA-OWENS, Pittsburg Education Assn.

CTA and Community Schools

CTA and Community Schools CALIFORNIA HAS MADE a historic $4.1 billion investment in community schools and CTA — in partnership with the state, school districts, students, families and communities — is working to help create new community schools and transition traditional schools.

Community schools’ democratic model of shared decision making ensures all students’ needs are addressed so they can thrive and helps build power with community that leads to a more equitable society. Community schools have been shown to improve student outcomes, including in attendance, academic achievement, high school graduation rates and reduced racial and economic achievement gaps.

Read more of our coverage of CTA and members’ work, and find information and resources, at cta.org/communityschools.

The Role of Community Schools Teacher Leads

COMMUNITY SCHOOL TEACHER leads’ roles vary depending on site needs. One important focus: helping develop curriculum that incorporates community-based learning. Teacher leads are given partial release time, maintaining a presence in the classroom. The Learning Lab showcased three teacher leads and their work:

Diana Gomez

Diana Gomez, Katella High School, special Ed and English teacher. “My main focus is on instruction, on community-based learning — how we connect learning to real life. We empower students to have agency and voice while still adhering to rigorous state standards. Right now I’m having students read a novel where a virus kills all the adults and the kids survive. It reminds them of the coronavirus; they share stories of resilience. I challenge them to have conversations with their families: ‘What if there’s another emergency? How can we be better prepared to lessen the effects of trauma and increase our safety?’”

Jason Collar

Jason Collar, South Junior High School, history and CTE teacher. “Whole child education is a collaborative effort. We are very intentional about what we do. This allows opportunities for us to elevate voices and engage students and families. An example: I had students research their communities’ assets — ‘What brings you joy in your neighborhood and school, what are the resources for your family. And what are the resources that we should have and why?’ Students really thought about this. I was able bring their input to our site team, and we considered making changes based on their work.”

Nikki Resch

Nikki Resch, Gilbert High School, English teacher. “Gilbert is a continuation school and has been doing a lot of relationship-building, deep listening and civic engagement for a very long time. [With community schools,] however, it has become more of a site-wide approach — connecting with our students and finding out ‘What are you really interested in learning?’, so instruction and content is more relevant in all classrooms and not just sprinkled into a few. All our students learn to advocate for themselves — they can collaborate with their peers and know that their teachers have their back.”

Anaheim: The Local and the District

The Learning Lab team includes Geoff Morganstern, ASTA president; David Greenberg and Angelia Ebner, NEA senior policy analysts and community schools specialists; Lisa Eck, ASTA executive director/CTA UniServ; Learning Lab Lead Christie Bettendorf; Adriane Dorrington, NEA program manager for community schools; Grant Schuster, CTA board member and CTA/NEA Coordinator.

The National Community Schools Learning Lab draws from ASTA and AUHSD’s expertise and experience with community schools. To date, 15 of 21 middle and high schools in AUHSD have transitioned to community schools and have received more than $23 million in state funding. The ASTA/AUHSD Leading & Learning Lab — informational tours and presentations at those schools — has drawn hundreds of educators nationwide.

“AUHSD has been super helpful with the Learning Lab, they want this to be successful,” said Learning Lab Lead Christie Bettendorf, who made sure the district steering committee and district cabinet gave input on and approved the Learning Lab components. “They’ve been with us every step of the way to fulfill the goals of the NEA grant.”

The relationship between ASTA and the district can sometimes be strained — the recent move to lay off Anaheim teachers, for example, was a difficult time. “Despite what happens, the kids are going to come first — our shared vision is still the priority,” Bettendorf said. “That’s what community schools are about.”

Interested in the Learning Lab?
Contact astacslab@gmail.com for information. Ideally, teams are composed of all stakeholders, but teams who have not yet formed collaborative relationships are welcome. The cost of the Leading & Learning Lab (tour), materials and some meals are covered. Attendees pay for travel and lodging.