Context: SDUSD is within our 3rd year of implementation of the Community Schools initiative. We are increasing designated Community Schools from 5 in 2022-2023, 15 in 2023-2024, and now a total of 25 in 2024-2025. Currently, there are ten new schools that are entering their year one implementation phase and need to engage in onboarding, site mapping, and capacity building.
Purpose:
Onboarding: Ensure community members across all educational partner groups understand the purpose, process, and prospects of being a Community School as well as being welcomed into the collaborative leadership bodies that are necessary for the continued success of the Community Schools model.
Site & Community Mapping: Identify all of the groups that help define the community in and around the school site so that there can be a clear documentation of what the community is comprised of and figure out who needs to be brought into the conversation of process of the Community Schools journey. Another major component of the mapping process is identifying pre-existing services that already exists within the site and community as well as an intentional evaluation so that gaps and redundancies in service provision can be identified.
Capacity Building: While identifying the different community groups, the aim is to educate them about the Community Schools process and actively invite them to join the Community Schools Team that will be providing input and oversite on the Community Schools work. The aim is to have a thoroughly diversified team that has representatives from the groups that were identified in the mapping process.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
CONTENTS:
Audience: Cohort 1, 2, 3 coordinators, site coaches, admin, and staff fellow travelers who will engage the Community Schools work over the next several years.
Purpose: Onboarding Community School site teams for the following year of implementation with a particular focus on prepping site teams for the strategic onboarding of staff prior to the start of the school year.
Presenters: Community Schools Department Members
Cohort 3 (7/30) Meeting Components
Cohort 2 (7/31) Meeting Components
Cohort 1 (8/5) Meeting Components
Suggested Improvements:
Have Coordinators do the working group protocol during Summer so that they have experience running through and knowing the the process.
Ensure everyone is clear about the supports that have already been built out from or for previous cohorts.
Have teams from previous cohorts talk about their journey as well as best practices and learnings to the incoming cohorts.
Ensure that there are slide deck templates ready for pre-service onboarding of staff as well as a clear onboarding plan for all educational partner groups.
Reflections built into each cohort onboarding.
Have clear criteria or rubrics for success when engaging in reflection and self-analysis.
Audience: SDEA members (Certificated Staff) who opted to participate in the workshop before the start of school.
Purpose: (a) Educate staff at different sites about what a Community School is as well as the process and goals of becoming one. (b) Generate excitement and buy-in within SDEA members to aid in the pushing of the work within their schools.
Presenters: Community Schools Central Office Resource Teachers (CS-CORT)
Purpose: (a) Educate staff at different sites about what a Community School is as well as the process and goals of becoming one. (b) Generate excitement and buy-in within SDEA members to aid in the pushing of the work within their schools.
Presenters: Coordinator & Coach CS
Year 1 - Components:
a. "Perfect School" - What does a perfect School look like to you? Audience participation.
b. Community Schools 101 - (i) What makes community schools unique? (ii) Why Community Schools? Describe the purpose and aim of the initiative. (iii) Explain the 4 pillars. (iv) Provide the community schools best practices.
c. Funding & Resources - Explain how the funding has been allocated to the site as well as the procedures for utilizing community schools funds.
d. Roles - Explain roles and functions of the coordinator and the site coach.
e. Road Map - Explain the benchmarks and journey of year one of implementation.
f. Next Steps - Explain the short-term next steps that the coordinator and coach will be working on as well as how educational partners and push in to aid in the work. This can be an initial call to join the community schools team.
Year 2 - Components:
a. "Why Community Schools?" - Explain the improvement science nature of the Community Schools process and the evidence for the efficacy of the process.
b. "What has happened up to this point?" - Explain what occurred last year with regard to the needs & assets assessment. Showcase the data results.
c. "Now what?" - Explain what the next steps are for the year and preview the aim, purpose, and procedures of the working groups (transformational teams).
d. "Call to Action" - Provide an overview of all the different actions that can be taken by the different educational partners to aid in the work for year 2 implementation.
Participants: CS Coordinator, Site Coach, CS Central Office Resource Teacher & (preferably) Principal.
Purpose: To ensure the CS team has a clear understanding of the general short-term and long-term benchmarks of the CS journey with a focus on explaining the role of CS coaches.
Next Steps: Set a standing meeting with the Community Schools team to ensure that there is clear communication about the division of labor as well as a clear universal understanding of what benchmark is being worked on.
Audience: All (certificated & classified) staff, students, parents, and community partners.
Purpose: Identify the current groups and services that are already present on and around campus in order to: (1) have a clear understanding of the pre-existing assets of the community, (2) identify key potential partners (staff, students, parents, community partners) to join in the collaborative decision-making process of Community Schools, (3) help identify where are the holes as well as redundancy in service provision.
General Conditions of Site Mapping:
Understanding the history of your school community
Clearly identifying all Meetings on Site: Staff meetings, principal meetings, Site Governance Team (SGT), School Site Council (SSC), Instructional Leadership Team (ILT), Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), on site community partner meetings, etc.
Community Schools coordination getting into classrooms
Create or obtain a list of the school partners and meet with them
Get out in the community to meet local businesses and organizations
Engage families
Materials: Make a folder in your google drive entitled "Site & Community Mapping". Copy of the "Site Mapping Roadmap" & "Site & Community Mapping Organizer".
Mapping Plan: Coordinator and coach (along with any other Community Schools friends/collaborators) should meet to create a plan to visit each formal and informal group to engage in Community Schools capacity building. USE THE "Site Mapping Roadmap" TO SCAFFOLD YOUR PLANNING.
Helpful Resources in Map Planning:
Make sure to Include:
Institutional Knowledge: Formal Groups - Ask Administrative Assistants if there is already a documented list of the different formal staff groups that exist on campus (departments, decision-making bodies like SGT or SSC, etc)
Identify name, member, location, size, and role on campus (purview).
Institutional Knowledge: Informal Groups - Using "organic leader" analysis, identify key informal leaders and groups on campus.
Elevator Pitch: Both the coordinator and the coach should develop an elevator pitch for Community Schools so they can quickly explain the basics as well as benefits of the Community Schools process to the different educational partners that will be talked to during the mapping process.
Please use this document to help scaffold the construction of the elevator pitch: BUILDING A PITCH
Capacity Building Presentation/Slide Deck Template: Build out the template to fit the the different audiences that you will be visiting during the site mapping process. The goal is to be able to help not just educate these groups, but also draw on them to aid in the work and diversification of the SGT as well as the CS Sub-Committee.
Please use this SLIDE DECK TEMPLATE.
Implement the "Mapping Plan" co-constructed by the coach and the coordinator. Be sure to keep track of the points of contact and log the interactions within the "Site and Community Mapping Organizer."
Put any digital documents gained during your pre-mapping preparation or the mapping process in the google folder.
Comb through the data with your team to identify the major educational partner groups who have been contacted and onboarded regarding Community Schools.
Reflect and see if you are missing any of the four major educational partner groups (students, staff, parents/guardians, community partners). If you are missing any major group, work together to figure out a strategy to be able to meet with that group.
Set a time/day once a semester to revise your site map.
Weekly standing site calibration meetings
Attending Site Governance Teams to aid in the building of the collaborative leadership structures as well as ensure that there is collaborative leadership oversight.
Attending and co-facilitation of Community Schools Team meetings to aid in the planning and structuring of the different benchmark deliverables.
INHOUSE
Weekly Coordinator Site Coordinator Team Meetings - Meeting Folder
Community Schools Coaching Workshops Once a Month for each Cohort
Cohorts 1&2: Resource Folder
9/24 - Focus: Collaborative Leadership Eval, Working Groups 101, Classroom Integration
10/22 - Focus: Progress Eval & Next Steps & Classroom Integration Deep Dive
12/10 - Focus: Classroom Integration, Sustainability, & Grant Applications
1/28
2/25
3/25
4/22
5/13
Cohort 3: Resource Folder
9/23
10/14
11/18
12/9
1/27
2/24
3/24
4/14
5/13
OUT-OF-HOUSE - Comprehensive List of All Opportunities
Community Schools Summit - County Office of Education (9/20-9/21)
NEA Community Schools Deep Dive (10/12-10/13)
NEA Community Schools Benchmark Academies
Coordinators Hired Earlier - Having coordinators identified, hired, and on-site before the end of the second semester prior to the first year of implementation.
Coaches Identified Earlier - Having the coaches identified early in the second semester prior to the first year of implementation by their SGTs so the master schedule can be arranged for them to have the release period.
More robust Summer & per-school planning - It would be helpful for the coaches and coordinators to be already knowledgeable and well-versed in Community Schools' best practices prior to the start of their first year of implementation.
Pipeline Training/Coaching - providing targeted training and aid in onboarding for sites that are looking forward to designation in the future so they can hit the
Revise site mapping doc - create a pre-mapping component and post-mapping component & make it in line with the protocol for the needs and assets assessment needs for the data collection planning process.
Create google forms surveys for Community Schools Team members to fill out and aid in the population of the revised site mapping doc.
Create a reflection time/protocol for each of the different sites and then have them post it on their site's websites.
Create a best practices section of this site - Have each site share their process and have all coaches & coordinators aid in identifying best practices utilized by each site (differentiate best practices from high school and K-8).
Example: Morse - flyering and holding parents' meeting early on and/or utilizing back-to-school night to onboard parents. Lincoln - holding large meeting with all on-site service providers and have them fill out a google form that populates all the necessary info for the mapping doc.
Finish the SDUSD Benchmark Doc.
Have a clear deadline and expectation for an outward-facing resource document for each site completed and presented first to all coordinators and community schools team for input and possible revision, then have them present it to their sites and finally post it to their websites.
Support & Implementation Docs
Audience: Cohort 1 & 2 coordinators, site coaches, admin, and staff fellow travelers who will engage the Community Schools work over the next several years.
Purpose: Onboarding Community School site teams for the following year of implementation with a particular focus on prepping site teams for the strategic onboarding of staff prior to the start of the school year.
Presenters: SDUSD Admin, NEA Coach(es), Coordinators & Coaches who have completed year 1 implementation.
Meeting Components:
a. Finding Purpose - Calibrating as to why we are doing the work.
b. Cohort Split Workshops - Each cohort identified the journey they will be going on for either implementation year 1 or 2, depending on which cohort they are within. Cohort 2 focuses on being able to define what a Community School is as well as generating an elevator pitch for future onboarding conversations.
c. Funding & Budgeting 101 - Teams were educated on the dos and don'ts as well as the overall process regarding funding and budgeting for Community Schools.
d. Best Practices & Learned Lessons - Coordinators and site coaches share different tips and tricks for year 1 implementation for both cohort 1 and 2 sites.
e. Cohort Split Workshops - Each cohort learns more about the next steps that they will be taking within the following year's implementation phase. Both cohorts focus on working with their teams to construct the slide decks for the preschool onboarding Presentations.
Suggested Improvements:
HAVE SITES GO OVER THEIR CS APPLICATION AND CONSTRUCT GOALS FOR THE YEAR AROUND PROGRESS ON THE PILLARS
More time for sites to work together on the deliverables: (1) Elevator pitch for onboarding, (2) Pre-school presentation slide deck preparation.
Less direct lectures more constructivist engagement and checks of understanding (particularly for new cohorts and new members of the sites)
Incorporate networking activity so everyone can get to know others who are within their cohort and about to be on the same journey or others who are in an earlier cohort and can be a resource for the process they are about to go through.
Audience: SDEA members (Certificated Staff) who opted to participate in the workshop before the start of school.
Purpose: (a) Educate staff at different sites about what a Community School is as well as the process and goals of becoming one. (b) Generate excitement and buy-in within SDEA members to aid in the pushing of the work within their schools.
Presenters: Community Schools Central Office Resource Teachers (CS-CORT)
Components:
a. "Perfect School" - Participants will be identifying the different attributes/characteristics of a "perfect school" to create a goal for us to reach for through the Community Schools process.
b. Defining Our Terms - What is a Community School? - Participants will be exposed to the different components of what it is to be a Community School and construct an organic definition individually and then as a group; ending with the provided definition by NEA.
c. Uniqueness of a Community School - We will identify the difference between a Community School and a non-Community School as well as acknowledge the notion that all community schools will be different because each one comes from a unique socio-political-geographic location. As a result, each site will work to identify the particular prioritized needs/areas of growth for their site.
d. Community School Pillars - We will work to engage in an overview of the four Community Schools Pillars and have participants engage in an assessment of where their sites are with each pillar as well as initial goal setting to improve each pillar for their site.
e. Creating the Change - Participants will hear about success stories from the Community Schools process and provide their own self-reflection on what assets they themselves bring to the table to create the change that they want to see.
f. Overview & Next Steps - We cover what the application process entails as well as what educators can do to push the Community Schools process within their own sites.
Deliverables:
Elevator Pitch - For both coaches & coordinators
Onboarding Presentations
Purpose: (a) Educate staff at different sites about what a Community School is as well as the process and goals of becoming one. (b) Generate excitement and buy-in within SDEA members to aid in the pushing of the work within their schools.
Presenters: Coordinator & Coach CS
Cohort 1 - Components:
a. "Why Community Schools?" - Explain the improvement science nature of the Community Schools process and the evidence for the efficacy of the process.
b. "What has happened up to this point?" - Explain what occurred last year with regard to the needs & assets assessment. Showcase the data results.
c. "Now what?" - Explain what the next steps are for the year and preview the aim, purpose, and procedures of the working groups (transformational teams).
d. "Call to Action" - Provide an overview of all the different actions that can be taken by the different educational partners to aid in the work for year 2 implementation.
Cohort 2 - Components:
a. "Perfect School" - What does a perfect School look like to you? Audience participation.
b. Community Schools 101 - (i) What makes community schools unique? (ii) Why Community Schools? Describe the purpose and aim of the initiative. (iii) Explain the 4 pillars. (iv) Provide the community schools best practices.
c. Funding & Resources - Explain how the funding has been allocated to the site as well as the procedures for utilizing community schools funds.
d. Roles - Explain roles and functions of the coordinator and the site coach.
e. Road Map - Explain the benchmarks and journey of year one of implementation.
f. Next Steps - Explain the short-term next steps that the coordinator and coach will be working on as well as how educational partners and push in to aid in the work. This can be an initial call to join the community schools team.
Participants: CS Coordinator, Site Coach, CS Central Office Resource Teacher & (preferably) Principal.
Purpose: To ensure the CS team has a clear understanding of the general short-term and long-term benchmarks of the CS journey with a focus on explaining the role of CS coaches.
Next Steps: Use the evaluation results to inform your site mapping process. If an educational partner group is missing from your campus's collaborative decision-making body, use the site mapping activities to recruit interested persons to be a part of that decision-making body.
Set a standing meeting with the Community Schools team to ensure that there is clear communication about the division of labor as well as a clear universal understanding of what benchmark is being worked on.
Audience: All (certificated & classified) staff, students, parents, and community partners.
Purpose: Identify the current groups and services that are already present on and around campus in order to: (1) have a clear understanding of the pre-existing assets of the community, (2) identify key potential partners (staff, students, parents, community partners) to join in the collaborative decision-making process of Community Schools, (3) help identify where are the holes as well as redundancy in service provision.
General Conditions of Site Mapping:
Understanding the history of your school community
Staff meetings
Principal meetings
Get into classrooms
Create or obtain a list of the school partners and meet with them
Get out in the community to meet local businesses and organizations
Engage families
Materials: Make a folder in your google drive entitled "Site & Community Mapping". Copy of the "Site & Community Mapping Organizer".
Institutional Knowledge: Formal Groups - Ask Administrative Assistants if there is already a documented list of the different formal staff groups that exist on campus (departments, decision-making bodies like SGT or SSC, etc)
Identify name, member, location, size, and role on campus (purview).
Institutional Knowledge: Informal Groups - Using "organic leader" analysis, identify key informal leaders and groups on campus.
Mapping Plan: Coordinator and coach (along with any other Community Schools friends/collaborators) should meet to create a plan to visit each formal and informal group to engage in Community Schools capacity building. Note: y'all should also sit down and go over the school calendar to clearly identify what already pre-existing events exist for site mapping purposes as well as the directory for the school to glean any information that may aid you in this process.
Make sure to identify:
(1) Name of group
(2) Location of group
(3) Time that they meet
(4) A point person from the Community Schools team who will reach out and provide the elevator pitch and/or capacity-building slide deck
Helpful Resources in Map Planning:
Elevator Pitch: Both the coordinator and the coach should develop an elevator pitch for Community Schools so they can quickly explain the basics as well as benefits of the Community Schools process to the different educational partners that will be talked to during the mapping process.
Please use this document to help scaffold the construction of the elevator pitch: BUILDING A PITCH
Capacity Building Presentation/Slide Deck Template: Build out the template to fit the the different audiences that you will be visiting during the site mapping process. The goal is to be able to help not just educate these groups, but also draw on them to aid in the work and diversification of the SGT as well as the CS Sub-Committee.
Please use this SLIDE DECK TEMPLATE.
Implement the "Mapping Plan" co-constructed by the coach and the coordinator. Be sure to keep track of the points of contact and log the interactions within the "Site and Community Mapping Organizer."
Put any digital documents gained during your pre-mapping preparation or the mapping process in the google folder.
Comb through the data with your team to identify the major educational partner groups who have been contacted and onboarded regarding Community Schools.
Reflect and see if you are missing any of the four major educational partner groups (students, staff, parents/guardians, community partners). If you are missing any major group, work together to figure out a strategy to be able to meet with that group.
Set a time/day once a semester to revise your site map.
Weekly standing site calibration meetings
Attending Site Governance Teams to aid in the building of the collaborative leadership structures as well as ensure that there is collaborative leadership oversight.
Attending and co-facilitation of Community Schools Team meetings to aid in the planning and structuring of the different benchmark deliverables.
INHOUSE
Weekly Coordinator Site Coordinator Team Meetings - Meeting Docs
Community Schools Coaching Workshops Once a Month
9/28 - Focus: CS Education & Collaborative Leadership - Slide Deck - Graphic Organizer
11/17 - Focus: Progress Check, Review Coach Role, Classroom Integration Pre-Planning - Slide Deck - Graphic Organizer
12/8 - Focus: Benchmark Progress Check & Website Construction - Slide Deck - Graphic Organizer
2/9 - Focus: Coach (Re)Designation '24-'25 & Team Work-time - Slide Deck - Graphic Organizer
4/26 - Focus: Data 101 Gathering, coding, cleaning, & presenting - Slide Deck - Graphic Organizer
5/17 - Focus: Onboarding of Cohort 3 Coaches - Slide Deck
OUT-OF-HOUSE
Community Schools Summit - County Office of Education (9/20-9/21)
NEA Community Schools Deep Dive (10/12-10/13)
NEA Community Schools Benchmark Academies
Coordinators Hired Earlier - Having coordinators identified, hired, and on-site before the end of the second semester prior to the first year of implementation.
Coaches Identified Earlier - Having the coaches identified early in the second semester prior to the first year of implementation by their SGTs so the master schedule can be arranged for them to have the release period.
More robust Summer & per-school planning - It would be helpful for the coaches and coordinators to be already knowledgeable and well-versed in Community Schools' best practices prior to the start of their first year of implementation.
Pipeline Training/Coaching - providing targeted training and aid in onboarding for sites that are looking forward to designation in the future so they can hit the
Revise site mapping doc - create a pre-mapping component and post-mapping component & make it in line with the protocol for the needs and assets assessment needs for the data collection planning process.
Create google forms surveys for Community Schools Team members to fill out and aid in the population of the revised site mapping doc.
Create a reflection time/protocol for each of the different sites and then have them post it on their site's websites.
Create a best practices section of this site - Have each site share their process and have all coaches & coordinators aid in identifying best practices utilized by each site (differentiate best practices from high school and K-8).
Example: Morse - flyering and holding parents' meeting early on and/or utilizing back-to-school night to onboard parents. Lincoln - holding large meeting with all on-site service providers and have them fill out a google form that populates all the necessary info for the mapping doc.
Finish the SDUSD Benchmark Doc.
Have a clear deadline and expectation for an outward-facing resource document for each site completed and presented first to all coordinators and community schools team for input and possible revision, then have them present it to their sites and finally post it to their websites.