Implementation Plan

2025 CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY SCHOOLS PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM:
IMPLEMENTATION PLAN TEMPLATE

Instructions

This California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP) Implementation Plan Template has been created by the State Transformational Assistance Center for Community Schools (S-TAC), in partnership with the California Department of Education (CDE). This template was designed to support implementation applicants with the requirement of submitting an implementation plan (per site) as part of their Request For Application and to support CCSPP grantees with community school implementation more generally. It should be considered a dynamic document that is periodically updated to reflect the progress and needs of your community school(s), legislative updates, and course corrections informed by your continuous improvement and school community engagement processes. The Local Education Agency (LEA) is referenced throughout the template to encourage collaboration between the LEA and sites on the implementation of the CCSPP. 

The Implementation Plan should be guided by the California Community Schools Framework (CA CS Framework), and the Capacity-Building Strategies: A Developmental Rubric. To build on existing objectives for community schools, alignment with overarching LEA goals and objectives as stated on Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs) and School Plans for Student Achievement (SPSAs) is strongly recommended. 

LEAs and school sites must work collaboratively with community partners, including families/caregivers, staff, students, district leaders, inter-agency representatives, etc., to develop and review the CCSPP Implementation Plan. The Lead LEA, working with school sites, is responsible for the plan and the oversight of any community partners or subcontractors. The LEA should include any partners in the development and review of the plan. It is recommended that the plan be reviewed biannually (twice a year), at least. Note that the Implementation Plan Template asks you to focus on the critical processes that each school and LEA must develop in order to execute the vision of community schools in order to achieve desired outcomes. The Annual Progress Report (APR) will ask grantees to reflect upon and report on those outcomes. 

The Implementation Plan will be submitted to CDE as part of the Cohort 3 Implementation Grant by those who are applying. This Implementation Plan Template will be updated as the CCSPP accountability system is developed.

CA CS Framework Overview

A community school is any school serving pre-Kindergarten through high school students through a  “whole-child” approach, with an integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development, and community engagement. It is an equity-driven and assets-building school transformation program.

Adopted in 2022, the CA CS Framework identifies 4 Pillars of Community Schools, Key Conditions for Learning, Cornerstone Commitments, and Proven Practices as follows:

Pillars of Community Schools: Integrated Student Supports; Family and Community Engagement; Collaborative Leadership and Practices for Educators and Administrators and; Extended Learning Time and Opportunities

Key Conditions for Learning in a Community School: Supportive environmental conditions that foster strong relationships and community; Productive instructional strategies that support motivation, competence, and self-directed learning; Social and emotional learning (SEL) that fosters skills, habits, and mindsets that enable academic progress, efficacy, and productive behavior, and; System of supports that enable healthy development, respond to student needs, and address learning barriers. 

Cornerstone Commitments of Community Schools: A commitment to assets-driven and strength-based practice; A commitment to racially just and restorative school climates; A commitment to powerful, culturally proficient and relevant instruction; and a commitment to shared decision making and participatory practices.

Proven Practices of Community Schools: Community Asset Mapping and Gap Analysis; A Community School Coordinator; Site-Based and LEA-Based Advisory Councils, and Integrating and Aligning with Other Relevant Programs.

The California Community Schools Framework is synthesized through the Overarching Values and operationalized through the Capacity-Building Strategies: A Developmental Rubric.

More information about these key concepts or community school components can be found at https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/yr22/documents/jan22item02a1.docx and at https://www.acoe.org/Page/2461, including the CA CS Framework.

Capacity-Building Strategies Overview

The S-TAC has launched the Capacity-Building Strategies: A Developmental Rubric to serve as a road map for both LEAs and school sites and is meant to enhance the adoption, implementation and sustainability of community schools. The Capacity-Building Strategies include a focus on: 

1. Shared Commitment, Understanding and Priorities 

2. Centering Community-based Learning 

3. Collaborative Leadership

4. Sustaining Staff and Resources 

5. Strategic Community Partnerships 

The Developmental Rubric can be accessed here, and is best used as a side-by-side companion document as grantees are completing this implementation plan. 

CCSPP: IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

School Site Contact Information

Patricia Bacame, pbacame@sandi.net, (619) 363-5695

Strategies, Priorities and Goals

Describe the main process goals and action steps for the school site’s community schools initiative. Add lines as needed. Use the phase-specific activities outlined in the Developmental Rubric as a guide. 

Strategy 1: Shared Commitment, Understanding, and Priorities 

When interest-holders unite in a shared understanding of and commitment to the community

school strategy, it drives democratic collaboration and transparency. Deep listening and authentic

relationship-building (via a robust Needs and Assets Assessment process) are critical to identifying

collective priorities and for monitoring progress towards meeting shared goals.

Part A: Shared Commitment, Understanding and Priorities Built Around the Overarching Values

After engaging interest-holders to answer the question, “why a community school for my school?”, share your response to that question in the box below. In your response, be sure to Indicate how your site’s understanding of community schools reflects its commitment to the CA CS Framework through the Overarching Values (Overarching Values can be accessed here):

1. Racially-just, relationship-centered spaces

2. Shared power

3. Classroom-community connections

4. A focus on continuous improvement and possibility thinking

Describe the developmental plans for ensuring these values are reflected in your community schools work:

The vision and mission of our Community School Initiative is to serve students, families, and the broader community by providing equitable access to resources and targeted support. The mission of community schools is to leverage the assets and opportunities beyond the school itself to serve multi-generational families. The initiative will include research-based strategies and mechanisms for adherence to the four pillars of the Community Schools model to ensure that the participating schools receive equitable resources, establish viable community partnerships, and foster collaborative leadership to support student learning, strong connections with families, and thriving neighborhood communities.

During the onboarding of our Site coordinator, they are supported in the learning on the history and best practices of community schools, along with ‘why’ the community schools strategy is right for our school. They bring that learning back to the our school community and create a series of visioning sessions with our educational partners to share the ‘why’ community schools as a strategy; what are the best practices that we will engage in as a community; and what is the framework (pillars) that will guide our work. 

From there, we create a community schools campaign to engage the community with information about the community schools strategy. This campaign will feature staff and community events to educate the broader community about the journey, share the excitement of transformation, and begin the process of continually asking questions, listening and responding to the needs of our community,and engaging in equitable change. Activities have, and will include, culturally relevant events and celebrations; school-wide events, “Coffee with the principal”, parent group meetings, family dinners, and more.  

As our community is engaged and educated, we move to transforming our school. We start by strengthening our shared decision making teams, and adapting a new school vision to include the best practices and pillars of community schools. We continue our community outreach to invite our educational partners to co-create our vision, and practices that will be both racially and culturally just, and will create strong community connections to the classroom. 

Through year one of strategy implementation, our Coordinators are leading a robust Needs/Assets Assessment process, where we gather at least 75% of each educational partner group’s feedback.  Once the data is gathered, it’s coded and after a deep dive process, school communities select their school priorities.

In year two and three of strategy implementation, these priorities become the focal point for collective progression.  Working groups comprised of all educational partner groups are developed who facilitate an improvement science process to find the root causes of the priorities, develop problem statements, and engage in PDSA cycles to improve outcomes.  These PDSA cycles are part of a continuous improvement cycle over the course of strategy implementation.

Simultaneously, our educators are working towards classroom integration of the strategy.  Learning to begin and/or continue bringing in the Needs/Assets Assessment data to classroom instruction to best reflect the students and communities we serve and provide innovative teaching methods in Project and Community Based Learning to uplift hands-on, relevant learning experiences is our goal to achieve transformation.

Part B: As part of the planning process, you have gone through an initial process of understanding needs and assets. As you initiate the implementation grant process and obtain site-level resources, please reflect on how you will go deeper in this needs and asset assessment process to engage the entire community in identifying their top community school priorities and vision. Please reflect on how you will engage different groups (administrators, certificated staff, classified staff, students, family members, community members and community partners) and identify the processes (e.g., surveys, one-on-one interviews, focus groups, visioning exercises, meetings/forums, etc.) you will use to engage them. Describe how you will engage historically marginalized student and family groups. 

Our first step in uplifting community voice with the Needs/Assets Assessment is to develop a data tracking plan. This plan will allow us to identify how we are going to track our data collected during the needs assessment process, and keep track of who we have connected with, and who we haven’t. We will develop different modalities and platforms in order to gather and aggregate our data. This will provide opportunities to engage partners in ways that accommodate their engagement styles. 

Data tracking plans will be specific for each educational partner group (Administration, certificated and classified staff, students, families, and community partners), and will include surveys, focus groups, power questions, one-on-one conversations, community conversations, and more. As part of the data collection plan, we will embed a tiered engagement plan for each of our stakeholder groups. This tiered engagement plan will allow us to audit our data to not only identify which partners have not engaged in the process beyond just achieving the 75 - 100% engagement mark, but to also ensure that there is representation from marginalized groups.

On our site, we will ensure all itinerant staff, food services, security staff, and paraprofessionals are included in the process. In our communities, we will disaggregate family data by race/ethnicity and specifically target marginalized communities to ensure those voices are included in the visioning and planning that represents the values and aspirations of all educational partners. 

Part C: As sites complete the needs and asset assessment process, they identify collective priorities that form the initial focus of their community school implementation efforts. Given your preliminary needs and asset assessment, please share three draft collective priorities that you anticipate arising as you achieve deeper engagement with students, staff, families and community members. 

One of the priorities should align with a support listed in the Whole Child and Family Supports Inventory (e.g., integrated student supports, authentic family and community engagement, collaborative leadership, extended learning time and opportunities, positive and restorative school climate, community-based curriculum and pedagogy, etc.). The collective priorities you list below may be the same goals you will ultimately report in the APR, or they may change throughout the course of your first year as you continually engage students, staff, families and community members.

Draft Collective Priority

Outcome/Indicators you aim to improve

Attendance

Outcome:

Increase overall attendance; decrease tardiness, and truancies.

Indicators:

Quarterly improvements; Increase in supports, activities, incentives that promote attendance improvements

Mental Health

By the end of the school year, we will implement at least one new diverse method of culturally responsive communication aimed at parents to enhance understanding and engagement with mental health issues.

Develop mental health campaigns for school communities increasing awareness, and providing tools to recognize and support mental health.

Indicators:

Pre/post surveys to measure attitudes/behaviors/knowledge around mental health

Increase number of events/resources

Track attendance of events

After school programs

Outcome:

Increase number of after school offerings at the school site

Integrate extended learning opportunities (i.e STEM programs)

Increase the number of students participating in afterschool programs.

Improved school attendance of students who participate in afterschool programs

Indicators:

Increased awareness of programs offered

Increase student enrollment

Increase student engagement and climate

Strategy 2: Centering Community-Based Learning 

Community-Based Learning (CBL) builds on the rich, diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds of

students, families, and educators. Delivered in learning environments that are

relationship-centered and ensure a sense of belonging, CBL builds on community assets, cultural

wealth, funds of knowledge, and indigenous ways of knowing. Community-Based Learning is

powerful instruction that increases student engagement by connecting classroom learning to

real-life experiences and to issues that are relevant to students’ lives and communities, improving

their sense of ownership and agency.

Describe your goals and action steps to assist educators in learning about students and families as well as understanding the theoretical roots and practical elements of community-based learning.

Site Level Goals and Measures of Progress

Goals

Action Steps

Select a Community School Site Coach Educator who supplements the Site

Coordinator by offering professional

learning related to Community-Based

Instruction

Facilitate a collaborative selection process to identify our

Community School Site Coach educator.  Then, provide

them with the supports necessary to learn and build their

capacity.

Monitor efficacy of professional 

learning.

Include questions in the initial needs and assets 

assessment relating to community-based instruction that

helps provide a baseline.  Track our site’s progress

through the administration of the 2nd needs and assets

assessment in year 4 of implementation.

Strategy 3: Collaborative Leadership 

Shared decision-making ensures all interest-holders have a voice in the transformation process and fosters shared power of the strategy. Collaborative leadership improves coordination of services, fosters supportive relationships, results in decisions that are widely accepted and implemented, and supports sustainability of the effort.

At the system level, LEAs establish a system-level steering committee/advisory council to conduct exploration activities and to provide crucial guidance to school-level implementers. At the site level, schools map and assess the current shared governance structures (where and how decisions are made) in their building and community, identifying all existing school-site and local neighborhood teams, networks, or working groups to understand their purpose and composition. Schools then launch or revise site-level shared leadership structure(s) to facilitate democratic participation and decision-making among students, staff, families, and community members. 

Describe your goals for strengthening collaborative leadership. 

Site Level Goals and Measures of Progress

Goals

Action Steps

Create a continuous feedback loop to ensure ongoing educational partner engagement

Establish multiple modalities for communication. Engage 

parent and community leaders in expanding partnerships.

Develop site-specific by-laws to ensure

shared power

Review current by-laws with site governance teams to 

ensure alignment to school’s vision for collaborative 

leadership.

Describe the system of shared governance and site-level leadership structure at your community school (this could be a visual like an organizational chart of other graphic):

San Diego Unified has two shared governance structures that reinforce the community schools strategies and best practices. At the district level, we have a Community Schools Steering Committee which is composed of district staff, certificated and classified staff, students, families, community partners, university partners, and union members. The role of the steering committee is to:

1. Lead the process to advise the district and inform the board members as to which schools are qualified and recommended (through an application) to enter the implementation process outlined by a Community Schools Implementation Team (CSIT);

2. Evaluate community school implementation using benchmarks developed by the CSIT;

3. Continually facilitate, support and refine the community school implementation process using roadmap developed by the CSIT including:

   1. The optimal location(s) of school sites for an initial cohort of no less than two and no more than five school sites that shall be supported to undergo a Community School implementation.

   2. Mechanisms to ensure school sites are transparent in shared decision-making processes (in alignment with school governance teams/bodies) with community partners and accountable to community concerns addressed through community needs assessment

   3. An assessment of the direct costs to the district for each community school.

   4. The process to build the capacity of stakeholders at the highest need San Diego Unified schools designated for Community School implementation.

   5. The hiring process, training and criteria for evaluation of the district and site community school coordinators.

Our site-level leadership structure is an inclusive process in which stakeholders work collaboratively to make decisions that positively affect student outcomes. All stakeholders are valued and feel that their involvement/input helps to improve student achievement, social development of students, civic responsibility, the working life of employees, and the quality of life for children, parents and community. Our leadership structure is called a Shared Governance Team (SGT), with a composition of elected members that represents the various stakeholder groups (teachers, parents, administrators, classified, certificated, and students. The breakdown of the SGT must be 50% Union members; 35% parents/community; 15%  Other - classified, students, community partners. 

The role of the SGT is to:

Support the shared decision making process

Seek input and sharing outcomes with educational partners

Be the main decision making group on the integration and implementation of the community schools strategy, including integration of the needs assessment results into the site SPSA.

Below is the SDUSD Community Schools flowchart for shared decision making

Strategy 4: Sustaining Staff and Resources 

A focus on staffing and sustainability ensures that the necessary human and financial resources are available to maintain the strategy over time, and to sustain continuous progress and improvement.

Describe your goals and action steps for ensuring that: staffing serves the target student population, LEAs recruit and hire diverse, multilingual staff to support site-level work, including an LEA-level Community School Director/Coordinator. Schools hire site-level coordinators. Both sites and systems develop sustainability plans to ensure core staffing is sustained through long-term funding. 

Site Level Goals and Measures of Progress

Goals

Action Steps

Community School Coordinator position sustainability 

Collection of impact data to prove position efficacy to Board

trustees

Continue to build and foster a diverse

school staff that can best meet the 

needs of a diverse school community.

Partner with Human Resources to elevate the priority of

hiring diverse candidates. Ensure collaboration with 

educational partner groups when hiring for positions to 

gather collective feedback.

Key Staff/Personnel

Community School Site Coordinator

Responsible for facilitating the process of whole school transformation and leading strategies for positive student outcomes. In alignment with the four guiding pillars (Collaborative Leadership and Practices, Integrated Student Supports, Family and Community Engagement, and Expanded and Enriched Learning Time and Opportunities)

Community School Site Coach

Support the Coordinator in development, administration, evaluation, and share out of needs and assets assessment. Support educators will community-based and project-based learning integration.

Community School Central Office Resource Teacher

Support our site’s Community School Team, Coordinator, Coach, and Principal, in strategy implementation, including enhancement of project and community based learning.

Describe the plans or steps you are considering to build sustainability beyond the life of your implementation grant: 

In 2020 and again in 2023 San Diego Unified’s Board of Education adopted Community Schools resolutions. The first, in 2020 is a resolution elevating the Community Schools strategy as one of the district's top priorities to address equitable access and student achievement. With this designation, we are looking to establish systems and practices within the community schools strategy that will be adopted and scaled by the district to continue funding the model beyond the life cycle of the grant. As we continue to develop our strategies of systems implementation, we believe that by infusing the goals developed from the needs assessment into the LCAP goals creates a systematic plan that pulls the shared vision of the school community into the overarching focus of creating racially just, equity-centered schools. In 2023, the district resolved that the Community Schools Steering Committee and Community Schools Department will exemplify collaborative leadership through jointly developing the next CCSPP grant application with a selection process for sites who demonstrate a shared-commitment from all educational partners, such as the Principal, SDEA site representative, classified staff, parent leader, and student at the secondary level, to the pillars of the Community School model as well as the implementation of a sustainability plan for the continuance of resources and/or services once the term of the CCSPP grant has expired; and 

therefore, be it further resolved, that the Community Schools Steering Committee and SDUSD Community Schools Department shall maximize CCSPP grant funds, as well as alternate funding sources, to support designated Community Schools with the resources necessary for staff leadership, project management, technical assistance, coaching, evaluation, staff support, partnerships, and more.

Additional plans for sustainability might come with sites infusing their community school goals into their LCAP and SPSA goals. This can create opportunities to engage site level budgets to be redirected in order to support the collaborative goals created through needs and assets, and become part of the systemwide focus. When this happens, sites are then able to pull-in Title 1 funds to support best practices, as well as engage partners in financially supporting the schoolwide goals. 

As a district team, we are also exploring expanding partnerships and braiding funding to support the community school efforts. Both of these models have shown success nationally when districts establish strong community partnerships. As we look into expanding partnerships, we will be engaging corporations, our university systems partners, non-profit organizations, and others to explore funding opportunities where these partners contribute to, and/or fully support one or more schools. We will also explore models of braided funding models that centers on examining the existing funds that share targets, or learning goals and outcomes to support the total cost of the system, service, or programs. As our schools are able to more clearly define their goals, and have the opportunity to implement the community schools strategy with fidelity, we will be able to engage our partners and leadership to create a sustainable braided strategy to continue this work.

Strategy 5: Strategic Community Partnerships

Developing strategic community partnerships allows schools and LEAs to build a stronger network of support and culturally responsive programming and resources for students, educators and families, and to foster a more inclusive, democratic and supportive learning environment that benefits everyone in the community. 

In alignment with strategies developed in response to the deep needs and asset assessment, schools identify and establish school-community partnerships who share a holistic focus on students, families and the community. This section should demonstrate your goals and action steps to ensure community partners are actively involved in the planning, development, and continuous improvement of the community school.

Site Level Goals and Measures of Progress

Goals

Action Steps

Increase the number of families who access local resources for academic support, counseling, and wellness, so that our community organizations work in alignment and with synergy to support families. Evaluate the quantity and quality of each partnership activity on an annual basis.

Continue to deepen partnerships with local agencies. 

Set up meetings to brainstorm ways to strengthen the work

we do with each group that supports students and families.

Coordinate an annual Partnership Appreciation event so

partners can connect, collaborate, and share resources. 

Collect meeting agenda, sign-in sheet, and minutes to 

verify completion.

Strengthen our relationship with local

Higher Education Agencies (UCSD,

SDSU, SD City College, Southwestern 

College, and USD. Keep track of when

each activity occurred. 

Meet with university partners to develop a shared vision for 

strengthening our partnerships. Schedule events so students can learn about colleges & careers. Collect data from students about participation and what they learned. Explore funding opportunities where education partners contribute to, and/or fully support our school.

Describe the partnerships you have established or plan to establish, and how your school’s partnerships will be responsive to the vision and priorities of students, staff, families and community members: 

Our school’s vision emphasizes student voice, agency, academic, and social emotional well-being. Partnerships support our goals to: 

1. Cultivate an inclusive school that supports the whole child; 

2. Promote parent and community engagement. 

Our SPSA supports extended learning opportunities in the form of clubs and sports. All students can participate in clubs that connect directly to their interests, passions, and needs as learners. Staff and community lead clubs that include gardening, STEM, and language. All students can try out for the district’s sports program on campus after school.

We have a vision to collaborate with a variety of community partners to match resources and services in the community with our identified school needs.We strive to ensure all members of our school community understand the importance of building positive partnerships. We will evaluate and improve community partnerships by: 

● Systematically soliciting input from students and their families

● Incorporate student and family input and feedback in school governance decisions. 

● Assess how families perceive the quality of the partnerships and use the results to improve our partnerships. 

We want to expand and deepen our Community Partnerships by: 

● Establishing our Family Staff Club 

● Expanding the food offering at Bell’s Essentials Pantry 

● Strengthening our partnership with our local Little Caesar’s Pizza

● Re-establishing a partnership with our new Military Counselor

● Strengthening our partnership with the non-profit Positive Movement

● Connecting families with resources 

● Providing regular medical/vision/hearing resources 

● Providing more expertise and support for Clubs 

We have worked hard at Bell to make sure all educational partners have a voice in the important decisions that our school makes on behalf of students and families. We have eleven active committees at Bell including: School Site Council (SSC), Site Governance Team (SGT), English Learner Advisory Committee (ELAC), Equity, PBIS, CARE, SART, PBL/CBL, Wellness & Safety, Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) and the Community Schools Sub-Committee. Each of these groups include representation from stakeholders across our school. Our goal is that our families and community partners take an even more active role in participating and advising our committees.

Developed by the California Department of Education and State Transformational Assistance Center, April 2024.

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2024 CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY SCHOOLS PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM:
IMPLEMENTATION PLAN TEMPLATE

` Instructions

This California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP) Implementation Plan Template has been created by the State Transformational Assistance Center for Community Schools (S-TAC), in partnership with the California Department of Education (CDE). This template was designed to support implementation applicants with the requirement of submitting an implementation plan (per site) as part of their Request For Application and to support CCSPP grantees with community school implementation more generally. It should be considered a dynamic document that is periodically updated to reflect the progress and needs of your community school(s), legislative updates, and course corrections informed by your continuous improvement and school community engagement processes. The Local Education Agency (LEA) is referenced throughout the template to encourage collaboration between the LEA and sites on the implementation of the CCSPP. 

The Implementation Plan should be guided by the California Community Schools Framework (CA CS Framework), and the Capacity-Building Strategies: A Developmental Rubric. To build on existing objectives for community schools, alignment with overarching LEA goals and objectives as stated on Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs) and School Plans for Student Achievement (SPSAs) is strongly recommended. 

LEAs and school sites must work collaboratively with community partners, including families/caregivers, staff, students, district leaders, inter-agency representatives, etc., to develop and review the CCSPP Implementation Plan. The Lead LEA, working with school sites, is responsible for the plan and the oversight of any community partners or subcontractors. The LEA should include any partners in the development and review of the plan. It is recommended that the plan be reviewed biannually (twice a year), at least. Note that the Implementation Plan Template asks you to focus on the critical processes that each school and LEA must develop in order to execute the vision of community schools in order to achieve desired outcomes. The Annual Progress Report (APR) will ask grantees to reflect upon and report on those outcomes. 

The Implementation Plan will be submitted to CDE as part of the Cohort 3 Implementation Grant by those who are applying. This Implementation Plan Template will be updated as the CCSPP accountability system is developed.

CA CS Framework Overview

A community school is any school serving pre-Kindergarten through high school students through a  “whole-child” approach, with an integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development, and community engagement. It is an equity-driven and assets-building school transformation program.

Adopted in 2022, the CA CS Framework identifies 4 Pillars of Community Schools, Key Conditions for Learning, Cornerstone Commitments, and Proven Practices as follows:

Pillars of Community Schools: Integrated Student Supports; Family and Community Engagement; Collaborative Leadership and Practices for Educators and Administrators and; Extended Learning Time and Opportunities

Key Conditions for Learning in a Community School: Supportive environmental conditions that foster strong relationships and community; Productive instructional strategies that support motivation, competence, and self-directed learning; Social and emotional learning (SEL) that fosters skills, habits, and mindsets that enable academic progress, efficacy, and productive behavior, and; System of supports that enable healthy development, respond to student needs, and address learning barriers. 

Cornerstone Commitments of Community Schools: A commitment to assets-driven and strength-based practice; A commitment to racially just and restorative school climates; A commitment to powerful, culturally proficient and relevant instruction; and a commitment to shared decision making and participatory practices.

Proven Practices of Community Schools: Community Asset Mapping and Gap Analysis; A Community School Coordinator; Site-Based and LEA-Based Advisory Councils, and Integrating and Aligning with Other Relevant Programs.

The California Community Schools Framework is synthesized through the Overarching Values and operationalized through the Capacity-Building Strategies: A Developmental Rubric.

More information about these key concepts or community school components can be found at https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/yr22/documents/jan22item02a1.docx and at https://www.acoe.org/Page/2461, including the CA CS Framework.

Capacity-Building Strategies Overview

The S-TAC has launched the Capacity-Building Strategies: A Developmental Rubric to serve as a road map for both LEAs and school sites and is meant to enhance the adoption, implementation and sustainability of community schools. The Capacity-Building Strategies include a focus on: 

1. Shared Commitment, Understanding and Priorities 

2. Centering Community-based Learning 

3. Collaborative Leadership

4. Sustaining Staff and Resources 

5. Strategic Community Partnerships 

The Developmental Rubric can be accessed here, and is best used as a side-by-side companion document as grantees are completing this implementation plan. 

CCSPP: IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

School Site Contact Information

Patricia Bacame, pbacame@sandi.net, (619) 363-5695

Strategies, Priorities and Goals

Describe the main process goals and action steps for the school site’s community schools initiative. Add lines as needed. Use the phase-specific activities outlined in the Developmental Rubric as a guide. 

Strategy 1: Shared Commitment, Understanding, and Priorities 

When interest-holders unite in a shared understanding of and commitment to the community

school strategy, it drives democratic collaboration and transparency. Deep listening and authentic

relationship-building (via a robust Needs and Assets Assessment process) are critical to identifying

collective priorities and for monitoring progress towards meeting shared goals.

Part A: Shared Commitment, Understanding and Priorities Built Around the Overarching Values

After engaging interest-holders to answer the question, “why a community school for my school?”, share your response to that question in the box below. In your response, be sure to Indicate how your site’s understanding of community schools reflects its commitment to the CA CS Framework through the Overarching Values (Overarching Values can be accessed here):

1. Racially-just, relationship-centered spaces

2. Shared power

3. Classroom-community connections

4. A focus on continuous improvement and possibility thinking

Describe the developmental plans for ensuring these values are reflected in your community schools work:

The vision and mission of our Community School Initiative is to serve students, families, and the broader community by providing equitable access to resources and targeted support. The mission of community schools is to leverage the assets and opportunities beyond the school itself to serve multi-generational families. The initiative will include research-based strategies and mechanisms for adherence to the four pillars of the Community Schools model to ensure that the participating schools receive equitable resources, establish viable community partnerships, and foster collaborative leadership to support student learning, strong connections with families, and thriving neighborhood communities.

During the onboarding of our Site coordinator, they are supported in the learning on the history and best practices of community schools, along with ‘why’ the community schools strategy is right for our school. They bring that learning back to the our school community and create a series of visioning sessions with our educational partners to share the ‘why’ community schools as a strategy; what are the best practices that we will engage in as a community; and what is the framework (pillars) that will guide our work. 

From there we create a community schools campaign to engage the community with information about the community schools strategy. This campaign will feature staff and community events to educate the broader community about the journey, share the excitement of transformation, and begin the process of continually asking questions, listening and responding to the needs of our community,and engaging in equitable change. Activities have, and will include, culturally relevant events and celebrations; school-wide events, “Coffee with the principal”, parent group meetings, family dinners, and more.  

As our community is engaged and educated, we move to transforming our school. We start by strengthening our shared decision making teams, and adapting a new school vision to include the best practices and pillars of community schools. We continue our community outreach to invite our educational partners to co-create our vision, and practices that will be both racially and culturally just, and will create strong community connections to the classroom. 

Part B: As part of the planning process, you have gone through an initial process of understanding needs and assets. As you initiate the implementation grant process and obtain site-level resources, please reflect on how you will go deeper in this needs and asset assessment process to engage the entire community in identifying their top community school priorities and vision. Please reflect on how you will engage different groups (administrators, certificated staff, classified staff, students, family members, community members and community partners) and identify the processes (e.g., surveys, one-on-one interviews, focus groups, visioning exercises, meetings/forums, etc.) you will use to engage them. Describe how you will engage historically marginalized student and family groups. 

As we transition from the initial needs and assets assessment phase to the implementation grant phase, it is critical to deepen community engagement in identifying the top priorities that will shape the vision of our community schools. To ensure schools are intentional about gathering the perspective of all of our educational partners, and ensuring there is representation from our marginalized communities, we will install multiple actions and benchmarks to recognize the diversity of perspectives within our community. 

Our first step in uplifting community voice is to develop a data tracking plan. This plan will allow us to identify how we are going to track our data collected during the needs assessment process, and keep track of who we have connected with, and who we haven’t. We will develop different modalities and platforms in order to gather and aggregate our data. This will provide opportunities to engage partners in ways that accommodate their engagement styles. 

Data tracking plans will be specific for each educational partner group (Administration, certificated and classified staff, students, families, and community partners), and will include surveys, focus groups, power questions, one-on-one conversations, community conversations, and more. As part of the data collection plan, we will embed a tiered engagement plan for each of our stakeholder groups. This tiered engagement plan will allow us to audit our data to not only identify which partners have not engaged in the process beyond just achieving the 75 - 100% engagement mark, but to also ensure that there is representation from marginalized groups.

On our site, we will ensure all itinerant staff, food services, security staff, and paraprofessionals are included in the process. In our communities, we will disaggregate family data by race/ethnicity and specifically target marginalized communities to ensure those voices are included in the visioning and planning that represents the values and aspirations of all educational partners. 

Part C: As sites complete the needs and asset assessment process, they identify collective priorities that form the initial focus of their community school implementation efforts. Given your preliminary needs and asset assessment, please share three draft collective priorities that you anticipate arising as you achieve deeper engagement with students, staff, families and community members. 

One of the priorities should align with a support listed in the Whole Child and Family Supports Inventory (e.g., integrated student supports, authentic family and community engagement, collaborative leadership, extended learning time and opportunities, positive and restorative school climate, community-based curriculum and pedagogy, etc.). The collective priorities you list below may be the same goals you will ultimately report in the APR, or they may change throughout the course of your first year as you continually engage students, staff, families and community members.

Draft Collective Priority

Outcome/Indicators you aim to improve

Attendance improvement

Outcome:

Increase overall attendance; decrease tardiness, and truancies.

Indicators:

Quarterly improvements; Increase in supports, activities, incentives that promote attendance improvements

Mental Health

By the end of the school year, we will implement at least one new diverse method of culturally responsive communication aimed at parents to enhance understanding and engagement with mental health issues.

Develop mental health campaigns for school communities increasing awareness, and providing tools to recognize and support mental health.

Indicators:

Pre/post surveys to measure attitudes/behaviors/knowledge around mental health

Increase number of events/resources

Track attendance of events

After school programs

Outcome:

Increase number of after school offerings at the school site

Integrate extended learning opportunities (i.e STEM programs)

Increase the number of students participating in afterschool programs.

Improved school attendance of students who participate in afterschool programs

Indicators:

Increased awareness of programs offered

Increase student enrollment

Increase student engagement and climate

Strategy 2: Centering Community-Based Learning 

Community-Based Learning (CBL) builds on the rich, diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds of

students, families, and educators. Delivered in learning environments that are

relationship-centered and ensure a sense of belonging, CBL builds on community assets, cultural

wealth, funds of knowledge, and indigenous ways of knowing. Community-Based Learning is

powerful instruction that increases student engagement by connecting classroom learning to

real-life experiences and to issues that are relevant to students’ lives and communities, improving

their sense of ownership and agency.

Describe your goals and action steps to assist educators in learning about students and families as well as understanding the theoretical roots and practical elements of community-based learning.

Site Level Goals and Measures of Progress

Goals

Action Steps

Create a continuous feedback loop to ensure ongoing educational partner engagement

Establish multiple modalities for communication. Engage 

parent and community leaders in expanding partnerships.

Develop site-specific by-laws to ensure

shared power

Review current by-laws with site governance teams to 

ensure alignment to school’s vision for collaborative 

leadership.

Strategy 3: Collaborative Leadership 

Shared decision-making ensures all interest-holders have a voice in the transformation process and fosters shared power of the strategy. Collaborative leadership improves coordination of services, fosters supportive relationships, results in decisions that are widely accepted and implemented, and supports sustainability of the effort.

At the system level, LEAs establish a system-level steering committee/advisory council to conduct exploration activities and to provide crucial guidance to school-level implementers. At the site level, schools map and assess the current shared governance structures (where and how decisions are made) in their building and community, identifying all existing school-site and local neighborhood teams, networks, or working groups to understand their purpose and composition. Schools then launch or revise site-level shared leadership structure(s) to facilitate democratic participation and decision-making among students, staff, families, and community members. 

Describe your goals for strengthening collaborative leadership. 

Site Level Goals and Measures of Progress

Goals

Action Steps

Family members will be a part of the C.S. Sub-Committee.

Family members will be recruited for the C.S. Sub-Committee

SGT will include C.S. role. 

SGT By-laws will be updated to include community schools, and allow for the Site Coordinator to become a full voting member. 

Describe the system of shared governance and site-level leadership structure at your community school (this could be a visual like an organizational chart of other graphic):

San Diego Unified has two shared governance structures that reinforce the community schools strategies and best practices. At the district level, we have a Community Schools Steering Committee which is composed of district staff, certificated and classified staff, students, families, community partners, and union members. The role of the steering committee is to:

1. Lead the process to advise the district and inform the board members as to which schools are qualified and recommended (through an application) to enter the implementation process outlined by a Community Schools Implementation Team (CSIT);

2. Evaluate community school implementation using benchmarks developed by the CSIT;

3. Continually facilitate, support and refine the community school implementation process using roadmap developed by the CSIT including:

   1. The optimal location(s) of school sites for an initial cohort of no less than two and no more than five school sites that shall be supported to undergo a Community School implementation.

   2. Mechanisms to ensure school sites are transparent in shared decision-making processes (in alignment with school governance teams/bodies) with community partners and accountable to community concerns addressed through community needs assessment

   3. An assessment of the direct costs to the district for each community school.

   4. The process to build the capacity of stakeholders at the highest need San Diego Unified schools designated for Community School implementation.

   5. The hiring process, training and criteria for evaluation of the district and site community school coordinators.

Our site-level leadership structure is an inclusive process in which stakeholders work collaboratively to make decisions that positively affect student outcomes. All stakeholders are valued and feel that their involvement/input helps to improve student achievement, social development of students, civic responsibility, the working life of employees, and the quality of life for children, parents and community. Our leadership structure is called a Shared Governance Team (SGT), with a composition of elected members that represents the various stakeholder groups (teachers, parents, administrators, classified, certificated, and students. The breakdown of the SGT must be 50% Union members; 35% parents/community; 15%  Other - classified, students, community partners. 

The role of the SGT is to:

Support the shared decision making process

Seek input and sharing outcomes with educational partners

Be the main decision making group on the integration and implementation of the community schools strategy, including integration of the needs assessment results into the site SPSA.

Below is the SDUSD Community Schools flowchart for shared decision making

Strategy 4: Sustaining Staff and Resources 

A focus on staffing and sustainability ensures that the necessary human and financial resources are available to maintain the strategy over time, and to sustain continuous progress and improvement.

Describe your goals and action steps for ensuring that: staffing serves the target student population, LEAs recruit and hire diverse, multilingual staff to support site-level work, including an LEA-level Community School Director/Coordinator. Schools hire site-level coordinators. Both sites and systems develop sustainability plans to ensure core staffing is sustained through long-term funding. 

Site Level Goals and Measures of Progress

Goals

Action Steps

Hire a Community School Coordinator who is reflective of our school community’s needs.

Gather educational partner feedback within collaborative

leadership structures, including Site Governance Team, 

to leverage the opportunity of hiring a Community School

Site Coordinator who maximizes impact within our school

community.

Continue to build and foster a diverse

school staff that can best meet the 

needs of a diverse school community.

Partner with Human Resources to elevate the priority of

hiring diverse candidates. Ensure collaboration with 

educational partner groups when hiring for positions to 

gather collective feedback.

Key Staff/Personnel

Community School Site Coordinator

Responsible for facilitating the process of whole school transformation and leading strategies for positive student outcomes. In alignment with the four guiding pillars (Collaborative Leadership and Practices, Integrated Student Supports, Family and Community Engagement, and Expanded and Enriched Learning Time and Opportunities)

Community School Site Coach

Support the Coordinator in development, administration, evaluation, and share out of needs and assets assessment. Support educators will community-based and project-based learning integration.

Community School Central Office Resource Teacher

Support our site’s Community School Team, Coordinator, Coach, and Principal, in strategy implementation, including enhancement of community-based instruction.

Describe the plans or steps you are considering to build sustainability beyond the life of your implementation grant:

In 2020 and again in 2023 San Diego Unified’s Board of Education adopted Community Schools resolutions. The first, in 2020 is a resolution elevating the Community Schools strategy as one of the district's top priorities to address equitable access and student achievement. With this designation, we are looking to establish systems and practices within the community schools strategy that will be adopted and scaled by the district to continue funding the model beyond the life cycle of the grant. As we continue to develop our strategies of systems implementation, we believe that by infusing the goals developed from the needs assessment into the LCAP goals creates a systematic plan that pulls the shared vision of the school community into the overarching focus of creating racially just, equity-centered schools. In 2023, the district resolved that the Community Schools Steering Committee and Community Schools Department will exemplify collaborative leadership through jointly developing the next CCSPP grant application with a selection process for sites who demonstrate a shared-commitment from all educational partners, such as the Principal, SDEA site representative, classified staff, parent leader, and student at the secondary level, to the pillars of the Community School model as well as the implementation of a sustainability plan for the continuance of resources and/or services once the term of the CCSPP grant has expired; and 

THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Community Schools Steering Committee and SDUSD Community Schools Department shall maximize CCSPP grant funds, as well as alternate funding sources, to support designated Community Schools with the resources necessary for staff leadership, project management, technical assistance, coaching, evaluation, staff support, partnerships, and more.

Additional plans for sustainability might come with sites infusing their community school goals into their LCAP and SPSA goals. This can create opportunities to engage site level budgets to be redirected in order to support the collaborative goals created through needs and assets, and become part of the systemwide focus. When this happens, sites are then able to pull-in Title 1 funds to support best practices, as well as engage partners in financially supporting the schoolwide goals. 

As a district team, we are also exploring expanding partnerships and braiding funding to support the community school efforts. Both of these models have shown success nationally when districts establish strong community partnerships. As we look into expanding partnerships, we will be engaging corporations, our university systems partners, non-profit organizations, and others to explore funding opportunities where these partners contribute to, and/or fully support one or more schools. We will also explore models of braided funding models that centers on examining the existing funds that share targets, or learning goals and outcomes to support the total cost of the system, service, or programs. As our schools are able to more clearly define their goals, and have the opportunity to implement the community schools strategy with fidelity, we will be able to engage our partners and leadership to create a sustainable braided strategy to continue this work.

Strategy 5: Strategic Community Partnerships

Developing strategic community partnerships allows schools and LEAs to build a stronger network of support and culturally responsive programming and resources for students, educators and families, and to foster a more inclusive, democratic and supportive learning environment that benefits everyone in the community. 

In alignment with strategies developed in response to the deep needs and asset assessment, schools identify and establish school-community partnerships who share a holistic focus on students, families and the community. This section should demonstrate your goals and action steps to ensure community partners are actively involved in the planning, development, and continuous improvement of the community school.

Site Level Goals and Measures of Progress

Goals

Action Steps

Increase amount of community partners.

Engage new community partners to start 

collaborations in alignment with the needs and assets assessment 

Establish measurement system for  

partners.

Keep track of how many students are served by partners.

Describe the partnerships you have established or plan to establish, and how your school’s partnerships will be responsive to the vision and priorities of students, staff, families and community members: 

Bayview Baptist Church - they will be organizing our Pantry and turning it into a Boutique / Grocery Store for our families. Most of our students qualify for the Free Lunch List and are in need. 

Children and Youth in Transition - we are discussing having an office for them on campus. They would be able to meet their homeless students on a regular basis and give them any needed supplies or food directly. About 100 of our students are homeless.

Mid-City CAN - they have started tabling at our large family events to promote their free services, which include empowerment of community members. 

Southwestern College Outreach, San Diego State University Educational Opportunity Programs, Outreach, and Success (EOPOS), University of California at San Diego Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) - provided campus tours for our 8th grade students, to promote a post-secondary education. SDSU Institute for Transformative Education - we are discussing them providing a campus tour next year. 

Educators Cooperative - collaborated on staff and student focus groups 

Cal-SOAP - presented on college admissions to our students and families, to promote a post-secondary education.

Asian Solidarity Collective - we are discussing how they can empower our community members, from an Asian American perspective. 

SDUSD Screening to Care - they have offered workshops on-campus for our families

Project New Village - we are discussing having them provide fresh food to our families 

Low-Rider Car Clubs - we are discussing a car show on-campus, to promote cultural pride for our students.

Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center - a historic tour of the murals was provided by the PMCC Vice-Chair/USD Ethnic Studies Chair

SDUSD Office of College, Career & Technical Education - we are discussing having a CTE teacher and course.

Developed by the California Department of Education and State Transformational Assistance Center, April 2024.