California is prioritizing equity in education post-COVID-19 by investing in community schools. Districts have an important leadership responsibility to develop the conditions, capacities, and resources for effective, sustainable community schools. Specifically, districts must strengthen system-level supports and infrastructure to ensure…

Community schools integrate a range of supports and opportunities for students, families, and the community through a set of partnerships between the education system, the nonprofit sector, and local government agencies. They are an evidence-based strategy for implementing whole child education, which addresses the full scope of children's…

"The Way We Do School: The Making of Oakland's Full-Service Community School District" offers an in-depth profile of the nation's most ambitious community school initiative. The book focuses on a nearly ten-year effort to transform all eighty-six district schools in Oakland, California into community schools in order to better meet the…

The Community School Manager (CSM) in Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) integrates a school's partnership work with its academic mission. The CSM collaborates with principals to: (1) identify school goals; (2) align partners and resources to those goals; and (3) build relationships with families, students, and the community. At mature OUSD…

Across the United States, policymakers, educators, and community members increasingly support community schools as a method of supporting whole child outcomes. Oakland Unified School District (Oakland Unified) in California has made whole child education central to its community schools initiative. Oakland Unified's community schools provide a…

Across the United States, policymakers, educators, and community members increasingly support community schools as a method of supporting whole child outcomes. Oakland Unified School District (Oakland Unified) in California has made whole child education central to its community schools initiative. Oakland Unified's community schools provide a…

The community school model posits that the traditional school model is not sufficient to overcome the role of poverty in equitable access to learning, and that improving student achievement requires addressing the needs of the whole child. By leveraging community partnerships to address student barriers to learning and shift relationships between…

This study highlights the collaborative efforts undertaken to create a temporary school called "Futuro Brillante" in San Diego County, California, to provide educational services for more than 3,000 unaccompanied undocumented minors who had newly arrived in the U.S. The study describes the compelling trajectory of the school's…

In 2012, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) leaders, staff, families, students, and community partners launched an ambitious effort to transform the district into a community school district. What started as a pilot in mostly secondary schools has expanded to become a far-reaching district strategy across all school levels. Currently, 42 OUSD…

Since 2014, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) has partnered with the Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford University (Gardner Center) to support OUSD's efforts to assess, enhance, and scale their community schools work. They began by working with the district to develop a System Strategy Map to articulate the district's…

In 2010, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) launched an initiative to transform all district schools into full service community schools. The community school design provides integrated supports to students and fosters a school climate conducive to academic, social, and emotional learning. Interventions span in-school and out-of-school time,…