Webinar - 2026 Legislative Prep: Community Schools as a Locally Driven Strategy for Student

Please welcome LPI President and CEO Alennena Silva. Thank you. Hello everybody. I'm thrilled to be here with you today. Welcome to the first webinar in this year's legislative prep series. This is a series we've created to help legislators and education leaders strengthen public education systems and address um all the emerging and persistent challenges that we see in our system and in our schools. Um, I want to begin by thanking the folks that helped put this together on the LPI side. Also want to thank the Education Commission of the States, National Association of State Boards of Education, and the National Conference of State Legislators for their partnership on this webinar. Uh we're all here because we're committed to finding best strategies to support each and every student to address as I mentioned a lot of the persistent challenges that we are grappling with in our systems and in our schools and to recognize opportunities to create the kinds of public schools that are safe and welcoming spaces that that connect education to the wider world. um that expand opportunity for the intellectual and the social and the civic development of of all children. Um the webinar this webinar series that we've created is designed to try to explore all of this and provide examples of how states can move in this direction with evidence in hand um toward policy solutions for both the short term and the long term. This particular series includes today and then also two webinars that we'll be holding in December. Those two will focus on transforming the high school learning experience to better and engage engage and prepare um today's students from the secondary to post-secary pathways. Um and the other is bringing insights into education funding including how recent federal actions will impact state education funding. The structure of these webinars is intentional. So we designed them so each one is going to begin with an overview of research on the topic. Um our sense is that and our belief is that state policies that directly affect educators and students should be guided of course by research um that shows what's having a positive effect. So we always want to begin with that research foundation. Uh we then have educa education leaders on on both Democratic and Republican led states from both places um both sides uh sharing approaches and experiences to help ensure that states are learning from from each other that there's an open exchange of information um and that we're learning best practices wherever they're happening. The topic of of this webinar that we're about to engage in is is community schools. Um uh community schools have been around for many many years, decades more. Uh and there are diff different designs and approaches that you'll see across across the country. The common denominator of effective community schools is their intentional focus on bringing students and families and educators and community organizations together to improve student learning and well-being. LPI has um completed extensive research. There's a big foundation of research on community schools here, including a recent largescale study on student outcomes, which you'll hear more about in just a moment. Um, we're also we're seeing more and more evidence of the effectiveness of community schools. I also would note that this this community schools when we think about it, this is about school improvement, improving individual schools. It's also about in improving communities. It's about it's a community and economic development strategy as much as it's just about schools. And that's in part what makes this work um so special and the evidence of its effectiveness so important. So you're going to hear more about um all of this and and more uh from today's research presentation. Um without delay I want to move in so we have time to dig in all the way. I'm pleased to introduce uh Tiffany Miller. Uh Tiffany is the Learning Policy Institute senior director of federal and state policy and she's going to kick off today's session. Thank you all again for being here, Tiffany. >> Thank you, Elena. Um, during our time today, our goal is for you to walk away with two things. First, a better understanding of the positive impacts that community schools have had on students. The second um as Alena talked about is how two states in very different contexts, one in California and one in Kentucky have used locally driven strategies to significantly increase the number of community schools in their state. Um and so we'll have a a nice panel discussion about that. But let's start with a brief review of the research. I'm very pleased to introduce my colleague Anna Mayer who is a senior policy adviser and researcher at the learning policy institute. She led much of the research and policy work that Alana talked about including LPI seminal report community schools as an effective school improvement strategy. and she also leads LPI's um co-leads LPI's research and policy work on community schools. And with that, Anna, I'll hand things over to you. Thank you. Sorry about that. I'm always happy to be here to talk about community schools. So when I am sharing research on this topic, I always like to start with a definition. Community schools are an evidence-based school transformation strategy that unites the efforts of students, families, educators, and community partners to improve student learning and well-being. And uh each community school is going to have a different combination of programs and services. that's really driven by the local context. But there are six key practices. Um, some of you may know them as pillars that are foundational to this work. And of practices is expanded and enriched learning opportunities. So this includes before school, after school, and summer care that's high quality and aligned with students learning experiences. We also have rigorous community connected classroom instruction. And this is instruction that's hands-on, often projectbased and addressing real world topics that are relevant to the local community and the students lives. Another piece of this is having a really positive school climate. So, nurturing a culture of belonging, safety, and care for students, families, and staff. There's also integrated systems of support and this is the piece where schools are often partnering with community- based organizations, sometimes local government agencies um to provide students and often family members with resources such as nutrition assistance, help with transportation, uh medical or mental health care. So those are those the really important wraparound supports um that can help students to get to school and succeed at school. And then the last piece is really foundational which is powerful student and family engagement uh through meaningful opportunities to um participate in the school community and that goes handinhand with collaborative leadership practices that encourage shared power and voice. And so at its foundation, communities feel a strategy that really is grounded in in that local decision-making and values the perspective of um parents and family members. So, Tiffany W shared some very kind words about a 2017 uh research review that I co-authored um with other colleagues at LPI and we looked at over 140 studies of community schools and their associated practices or pillars that I just talked about. Um and we found a number of benefits associated with community schools. We found that this strategy when implemented well can lead to positive outcomes for students and for schools. These benefits include increased attendance as well as reductions in chronic absence. uh we see increased academic achievement and that includes test scores uh especially in math as well as improvements in graduation rates. Um in terms of school climate, we often saw students uh reporting on school climate surveys that they had uh more positive relationships with their peers and with adults at their school and more positive attitudes towards school. And we also saw reductions in racial and economic achievement gaps uh for students in special education and for English learners. And I'm going to talk more about these um opportunity and achievement gaps in a a short while. And then lastly, there's a handful of studies that pointed to a cost benefit ratio between $5 up to $15 for every dollar invested in this approach. So we see that it's a way to leverage resource, excuse me, leverage resources and support students and families. There's also a growing evidence base coming out of the different states that are investing in community schools and I'm looking forward to sharing um that outcomes research. And first I want to sh just share which states are investing in community schools and what strategies that they're using. Um so what you see on this slide is two states that have included community schools in their school funding formula. So Maryland uh has created an entitlement grant program for high poverty schools to become community schools. And the current threshold they have is that 55% or more of the students at the school uh come from low-income households in order to qualify. They provide a lump sum per site for staffing and then they have a formula they use to calculate an additional per student funding allocation um to support community school services. New York has created a set aside in its school funding formula for highne districts that want to use community schools as an improvement strategy and they also provide technical assistance by funding uh regional TA centers in the state. There also are a number of states that are offering competitive grants for community schools and that includes California, my home state, um which made a one-time investment from the state general fund. Uh and currently the program is historic in size um currently supporting nearly 2500 sites across the state uh to become community schools. Um, Illinois has used uh federal funds to establish a grant program through ESSER and they currently have a federal uh full service community schools grant for state scaling and you'll hear me mention that funding source. Uh again, New Mexico has created competitive grants through its state general fund and they've also drawn on some title one school improvement dollars and Vermont started a competitive grant program with ESSER funding and then invested um money from their state general fund to continue the work. And then lastly, we have states that are investing in capacity building. Florida uh has created a certification program for their community schools model which they call community partnership schools and they invest money from the state general fund to to provide um funding for schools that are going through the certification process which is operated by the University of Central Florida. and they also recently received a again a federal full-ervice community school state scaling grant to expand this work. Also, Kentucky um has invested state funding for many years in family resource and youth services centers for skis that are coll-located at school sites and also has received federal uh grant funding for community schools implementation and scaling in rural areas of the state. So, I'm really excited to hear from our panelists about the work in Kentucky as well as in California in just a few minutes. And lastly, I wanted to note that Idaho, North Carolina, and Puerto Rico also receive federal full service community school state scaling grants. So, it's going to be really interesting to see the initiatives that emerge in those states as well. So, here's the total picture. And what we can see here is that there's quite a few states investing in community schools. we see variation in size, in geography and in approach. I do think it's interesting to note that there is a commonality that seems to be coalesing around the per site amount that states are funding. And I don't have that data for every state, but for the states where there's a clear per site amount being funded, we see that $150 to $250,000 annually tends to be uh close to the midpoint of what of how states are funding community schools. So with that, I did promise to share more about the outcomes we're seeing from these state investments. And I will just note that this is an emerging evidence base. It's rapidly growing and a lot of the these investments are fairly recent and are mid-stream in implementation. So we're seeing more and more um outcomes emerging um every month. So what you see here across the top are the states where we we do have uh clear outcomes data and some of these uh come from statewide studies. Some of these are looking at large initiatives in particular cities. Um and in New Mexico we have evidence from case study sites and we really do see a picture uh emerging that shows positive outcomes that corroborate the research review that I mentioned earlier. So you see that across the states that there in terms of attendance there's reductions in chronic absence as well as improvements in overall attendance rates for achievement. We see some states that are improving um English language arts and math test scores. As I mentioned earlier, we see some improvements in graduation rates. And um interestingly in Cincinnati, they are tracking third grade reading as a metric and are finding improvements at their community school sites. And in terms of school climate outcomes, uh we see reductions in suspension rates and other disciplinary um measures. We see improvements, as I mentioned, in school climate surveys, uh increased student and family engagement, and again in Cincinnati, um there's a new research showing that black uh student enrollment increased by 5% in community schools compared to non-community schools in rapidly gentrifying areas. So, as the surrounding community changed in terms of the population, community schools had more uh stable and higher enrollment um in terms of of black students and families. And um lastly, I I wanted to talk a little more about the what we see in terms of achievement and out uh outcomes achievement gaps. And um again we see a reduction in achievement gaps for um black students in Cincinnati also in California. And then additional results in California showing reduced gaps for English learners, Hispanic students, and socioeconomically disadvantaged students. And I'll share the California research again in a few slides. So, I'm going to just close with uh a little bit more specific information about two of the largest and most rigorous evaluations that we have for community schools. The first is a study of New York City's community schools initiative. This was done by Rand. Um, currently New York has over 400 community schools. At the time of the study, it was closer to 200. And they documented implementation and outcomes. This was all pre- pandemic in New York City. Again, we see a pretty consistent picture emerging here. New York had positive impacts on attendance. This was true for all grades with reductions in chronic absence, increases in overall attendance rates for achievement. Uh students in K8 were increased their ontime grade progression, and there were improvements in test scores for both ELA and math after three years. um high school students had increased graduation rates and in terms of school climate in K8. There were reductions in disciplinary incidents and students said that they felt more connected to school. Um there also you see that there's two studies listed here. The um journal article was doing additional analyses of this data and found that there was an immediate impact of a 5.6 6 percentage point reduction in chronic absence from this uh investment which sustained over three years. And then uh towards the end of that three-year period, strong results emerged in terms of improved ELA and math test scores. So there was a little bit of a phasing that was observed uh in terms of the outcomes. In California, LPI has very recently released an evaluation of cohort one of community school grantees. Um, and this is the first major study that's looking at post-pandemic outcomes of community schools. And as I mentioned, this is an evaluation of the largest uh initiative in the country. And again, we see positive impacts on attendance uh in especially reductions in chronic absence. we see increased ELA ELA and math test scores and uh reduced suspension rates. And I think that um you know it's it's important to note that um both the RAND and the LPI study were using a really careful methodology to compare uh results for students in community schools to students in non-comm community schools that were very similar on a number of measures including outcomes and um demographics [clears throat] uh prior to the investment. So the idea is you're really looking to see at what changes you can attribute to the community schools investment. Um and so what we saw was that post pandemic schools in California were making improvements in chronic absence and uh reductions in chronic absence, increases in test scores statewide, and that community schools were improving at a more rapid rate um than very the very similar schools in the control group. And this last graph that I want to share is showing evidence that we're also starting to close some of the opportunity and achievement gaps in our state through this investment because historically underserved student groups made the greatest gains in the results. The blue bar you see here is the overall impact. So all students benefited from this investment. You see the reductions in chronic absence and suspensions, the increased test scores. When we look at black students, we see that the impacts are dramatically higher across all of the outcome areas. When we look at Hispanic students, we see the largest impact in the chronic absence category. when we look at English learners, we see the largest impact in improving ELA test scores and uh finally we see improvements across the board for socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Uh so I think that in this moment it it's so powerful to see uh a strategy we can invest in that's responsive to parents and family members um that is addressing local priorities and needs um and that's that can potentially help us to um start to close some of the opportunity and achievement gaps that are so concerning in our society. So, with that, I'm super excited to hear from the panel and I'm going to turn it back over. >> Thank you for that, Anna. Um, it's exciting to see all of uh the positive outcomes uh for youth and students um that's emerging as themes across all of these different investments in community schools across the country. Anna will be with us for the rest of the webinar. So, if you have questions about the research or any um details about specifically what community schools are, you can drop those in the chat and she will stay on to answer those questions. Um but for now, let's turn to the panel discussion. Um we're fortunate to have such a stellar group of panelists today. Um, Senator Amanda Bledsoe represents the 12th Senate District in Lexington, Kentucky. She serves as vice chair of both the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee and the Senate Families Families and Children Committee. Senator Bleo served as a le Lexington city council member for district 10 for eight years, including four years as the chair of the budget, finance, and economic development committee before being elected to the state senate. She is passionate about serving her community through volunteering and lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her husband and two children. We also have joining us uh this afternoon Bridget Blum who is president and CEO of the Pritchard Committee for Academic Excellence. She's been an education leader for over 25 years, spending time in both public service and professional public policy, maintaining a steadfast commitment to improving the quality of life for Kuckians through increased education outcomes and opportunities. And we also have Dr. Ingred Robersonson um who was appointed this year earlier this year um as uh sorry by Superintendent Thurman as the chief deputy superintendent of public instruction at the California Department of Education. With nearly 25 years of California public TK through 12 educational experience, Ingred started her career as an instructional assistant in a special education preschool classroom and served in a variety of district, county, and state leadership positions. She's also worked within the California higher education system and private foundations. Um, thank you all for joining us. So, Ingred, I will start with you. As we just heard from Anna, um the California Partnership uh community schools grant program had a significant impact on attendance and math and the ELA test scores, especially for students who are often um you know, many times the furthest from opportunity. We also heard that this was a historic investment of $4 billion. Um, but that's not necessarily where things started. Can you talk a little bit about um where the work to build community schools in California started and how you built support along the way to reach the point of such a significant investment leading to where you are now? >> Thank you for that question, Tiffany. Yes, it's definitely been a journey here in California. Um, and just to give context, you know, California, we have six nearly six million students in 10,000 schools. Uh, so we are very happy to now have 25% of our schools be community schools. And it really is a mindset shift. Uh, yes to outcomes. Uh, and you know, academically, social emotionally u but it is just such a mindset shift that has taken a few years for us to get to. Um, and so just so you know that our legislature actually passed the California Community Schools Partnership Act in 2021 and then with the height of the pandemic uh decided to dramatically expand this program in 2022. And so it was a an over $4 billion investment for us here in California. And the one thing I would really want to get across is a community school is a more resilient school. And so not not only are we seeing the things in terms of academics, we're also seeing that our community schools really can weather uh emergencies, right? So for example, as we've had the recent fires in January 2025, uh community schools we found were actually much more responsive to student and family needs and were able to organize school and community resources to provide temporary housing for families and staff. So what I really want to emphasize is at the start of this journey uh we really elevated four programmatic features. It was the integrated support services, family and community engagement, extended learning time and opportunities. And then the fourth one and I think most importantly from the start is collaborative leadership uh practices for both educators, administrators along with their community-based organizations. And so, uh, as we began this, our application process had both planning grants as well as implementation grants. And we found that those, uh, districts that were able to, uh, start with a planning grant were really there was an accelerator that happened because they actually were grounded in more of a shared leadership process. That meant that family, community- based organizations, school staff such as classroom teachers and CLA and classified staff were part of setting the tone, the vision for how they wanted to become a community school, right? So, you really do want to avoid this being a top-down approach. Um, I think having the applications be at the district level was really important rather than at the school level. Uh this allowed for districts to really best leverage community schools to assess the varying site needs strengths that are needed to transform into a community school. In the state of California, we're rather large and so we invested heavily in a vertical align vertically aligned support system. So from the California Department of Education, we also had a state technical assistance center, eight regional technical assistance center, and then in our world, we have 58 county offices of ed who are all eligible uh for a technical assistance grant of which 52 out of 58 did receive. And so it really allowed for our 2500 schools to have gotos uh at the local level. the counties really do know they they wrapped their arms around a set of uh local education agencies here. Um and so not only were they getting funds to implement at the school site at the district level, but they also had go-to technical assistance from a statewide point of view, regional point of view, and their local county. And we've definitely have heard uh that has made a difference in terms of a culture shift and again the mindset shift. Uh the other thing I would say is that we made sure to have funding alignment along with other agencies belong uh beyond us as the California Department of Education. Uh so making sure we were aligned in terms of our health and human services, public health, uh social services in this grant. So we named other grant pots uh to leverage and we actually scored a bit in that way in terms of the application. Our funding formula also really made sure to elevate a priority around unduplicated pupil populations. And for us, that's lowincome, English language learners. We had a priority for California around our rural districts. Uh so we really made sure to have those different weights that reflected the the regional diversity that we have uh here in California. But I would have to say overall, not only are we seeing those academic outcomes, it has been incredible to see how these schools are able to rise to emergencies that occur such as the fires. >> Yeah, that's great. Um you know I was also thinking um when you were speaking what resonated with me is just in many cases um during the pandemic um many community schools were sort of um you know ground zero and almost you know the site coordinators in many um instances in community schools across the country were almost the first responders. They were the ones that already had the system in place. They had the relationships with the families and they were quickly able um because of all of that they were quickly able to pivot um to really provide support to families um and you know that unprecedented unprecedented time that we um were in. Um, Senator Bledsoe, I would like to turn to you because California is not the only state um investing in community schools as a way to build stronger student, family, and community engagement. Um, the number of community schools across Kentucky has grown substantially over time as you know and there's a little bit of history there that I think could be helpful for this audience to learn from as they think about how to transform learning in their state through community schools. Um, my understanding is that Kentucky community schools in many instances were built on top of a existing infrastructure. um the Friskies as Anna uh mentioned in her presentation which are the family resource and youth service centers. Senator, can you talk a little bit um tell us a little bit about the history of the family resource and youth service center centers? >> I'd be happy to and thank you for allowing me to be a part of the panel. Uh success at student levels and community success is regardless of where you live across the country. um it matters and local control I think really matters most. And so what we saw in Frisy kind of starting was because in 1990 the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled the way we were funding education unconstitutional. And they said that for a couple of different reasons. One, we had various poor performance throughout our state. We had very high performing high wealthy schools and very poor districts. We had no accountability structure in place to say who was accountable when this happened. And so the Kentucky Education Reform Act was passed in 1991 to address those issues and really start funding at a per student basis. There was equality throughout our state and also to put local control back in place. You have local bait, local decision-making councils, local school boards working together and and trying to fit what made what the most sense for each community because it's a wide variety of Kentucky, very similar to California, rural, urban, high eastern Kentucky versus western, very different demographics, very different communities, and they need a community- based approach. And what's interesting with the Friskies, they were founded because we recognize there's nonacademic barriers to success. And so how do we address those at the local level which are different and provide some help? And so the friskies were started we had 133 who started in 1991. Today we have 960. They're serving over 600,000 students in Kentucky. And they have 12 different regions and they're very successful. So it's fully applied to be one. It's a partnership between our education and our social services. So the cabinet for health and family services would approve them mostly based on free and reduced lunches. And then that school becomes a a center and their goal is then to provide pre success for kids coming into kindergarten making the time during education very successful maximize their potential and then help transition them out of out of the K through 12 and into being a productive member of the Commonwealth. Right? We want them to start well, do well and then finish well. And so that is really what the Friskies were about. And it's a really fascinating program because it really puts families and students together with education and has a lot of local accountability and schoolboard involvement. But each center has its own advisory board that develops its own budget and make sure the programming fits that particular center. They've been very very successful. >> Thank you for that. And and that history. And then what has been what have you um what has the been the impact of the friskies that you've um seen on students and their families? >> I mean exceptionally high performance and high return on investment when you look at 35 years of the friskies of centers like that that shows that it's working. One of the biggest things we do in in state government a legislator or or a governor may look at is the program working? Are we making student success and meeting achievement goals? And is this program doing what the taxpayers are asking it to do? And what we've seen is over 35 years, Republican and Democratic governors, uh members of the Democratic and and uh Republican party majorities in the general assembly over that time frame have all led and all continued to fund the Frisky program because that works. Even this last two years, we're investing 17.5 million dollars annually into this program, which shows you what the commitment is. And as you've said, the community uh federal programs have come around and assisted them to make them even more successful because our infrastructure was already in place. And that's something that I think no matter where you go, there's hundreds of examples where you've seen in gang violence, dental, mental health. I could go down a number of issues that we've seen specific return on investment where student success has increased because we've had the frisky programs be present. >> Thank you for that. I I feel like um you sort of gave us a little peak behind the curtain of maybe some of the conversations that elected officials might have when it comes to making decisions around what you're going to invest in. And so what I think I heard was this is a long-standing program that um has a a strong return on investment. Um it's showing great outcomes for students and families and it's bipartisan, been around for 35 years. And so when it comes to those when you're in those committee meetings and having conversations with your colleagues um in your state, those are the kinds of things that the audience should be thinking about if they want to, you know, prop up something similar in their state. They should be thinking about the ROI and the data and things like that. >> Absolutely. And buyin and what you've seen is that each community when they establish those advisory boards, they're working. So you have members of the business community, the faith community, members of a social services and education all coming together and saying what do we need to address those barriers to make that student be successful and that family be successful and that varies over time. what they need coming into elementary school may look like preschool and literary services and parenting education and what it looks like during success and maybe the six through 12 is gang violence, mental health, socialization, getting ready for college, getting ready for what that looks like post education. So it allows a lot of flexibility which I think is part of the beauty but allows it to be what maximizes the return for that community and the buyin there is just clear when I go across the state everywhere you go they say our frisky program matters and it matters because it's being successful and people love it and if I'm when I'm looking at approving a program for education or for any other part of state government on the budget team I'm looking at is this a good program is it meeting the needs is it providing ROI and is and if not is there something better and the fact that we continue to fund this shows that it's working. >> Great. Thank you for that. So, Bridget, I'd like to turn to you um because the family resource and youth service centers seem to serve as a foundation for community schools to really grow and thrive across Kentucky. Can you talk a little bit about how that transition happened to sort of having that foundation of the Prriskies and then um you know building community schools on top of that. think it might be helpful um to talk a little bit about that for this audience as they think about how they might want to establish something similar in their own state if there's not a large infusion um of state dollars for example um coming their way anytime soon for something like this. >> Yeah, and thank you for that question. Um, and as Senator Bledsoe mentioned, um, family resource youth service centers are really part of Kucky's systemic approach to improving education outcomes. They were part of our 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act and the Pritchard Committee as an organization was behind that movement and the passage of that forerunning reform act in the country. Um, and so the growth of friskies, as Senator Bledsoe mentioned, has been critical to the state understanding how we improve outcomes in a state that is currently fourth from the bottom of the country in poverty. Um, and has never risen above sixth from the bottom of the country. So that foundational investment of Frisk is the investment in coordinators in each and every school district and in uh the vast majority of our schools that support um a bridge between schools and what students and families need. So, as we saw the opportunity to um for the full service community school state scaling grant, we thought it's a perfect time for Kentucky because Frisk is foundational to our system. We know it works and um state scaling thinking about the evolution of the program. Um and I even hesitate calling it a program because it's really an approach. Um so what is that evolution? And what we saw is that um the piece that can improve is a um an individual at a leadership level in school districts that their responsibility is thinking about the school district's theory of change to improve education outcomes and the community's buyin to that theory of change and leveraging community resources at a high level. not just at a coordination level but at a high level around a shared community theory of change to improve outcomes for students and families that is unique to each and every school and school district in the state. um as Senator Bledsoe mentioned, very localized. And so our approach has been to um to develop collaborative leadership in a district level individual who is charged with thinking about the connection between the school district's academic uh mission and the community's commitment to removing non-academic barriers and supporting students and families. And so, um, in each of our 20 districts across the state and 40 schools, they're starting first with a communitywide understanding of the data for the community, um, across the pipeline of education from early childhood through post-secary. Um and then they're deciding on a plan um to remove non-academic barriers to success through collaboration of co um and coordination of community resources and tracking their progress in such a way that it results in um improved outcomes in attendance behavior and academics. And very early in, only about a year and a half in, we're already realizing a 46% increase in community participation, community- based organization participation. Um, an almost 10% increase in reading, and a just over 10% increase in mathematics. >> Thank you for that. Um, what resonated with me with your answer to that question is that um I I didn't count how many times, but several times you said local and community. >> Um, and it seems like this was something that was very much um well I I don't know was it would you say it's grassroots? Like did it really start like was it more grassroots than top down and it really came? >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Um and Anna did a great job with you know with the model and the four pillars. Our approach um uh to state scaling has been about community first. This is about bringing the community to the table um with our schools and school leadership to say we have to do this together. Um we have to do this together collaboratively because there are resources that exist in our school and there are resources that exist in our community. And if we're not thoughtful stewards of the combination of resources and expertise, it's our students and families who are left out. Um so our approach was not prescriptive. Um it was very much bring the community to the table and let's understand um uh let's own the truth of local and decide what we want to do to make a difference. One of the examples that I use um is around mental health, which has been a a rising issue for all of us across the country, student mental health. And our districts, many of our schools have responded trying to um fill that gap and support students mental health, which is terrific and what schools do, but there's mental health expertise in all of our communities. And so to expect our teachers to become mental health experts is missing the expertise in our community that could be brought to bear to assist with student mental health issues. And that's the kind of partnership that we want to see happen so that our teachers can focus on what we expect of them and of our schools and our school leaders and that's high quality teaching and learning and instructional leadership. Um, so we've actually heard again very early on but recently heard from a principal who was expressing and this is the word she used expressing her joy in being able to focus again on instructional leadership and supporting teachers around highquality teaching and learning because they felt like they had the collaborative um support of the community um for many of the non-academic bar many of the non-academic needs and the needs outside of the school day in the school year. >> Great. Thank you for that. Um, we're getting so many question. The chat is just moving like crazy. I can barely keep up with all of the questions that are in there. Keep um just to the audience, keep dropping your questions in the chat. I I'm hoping to turn to one of them now. I saw it much earlier. I couldn't even find it when I scrolled back up. But there was a question about I'm glad you um Bridget you talked a little bit more about um you know starting with the community locally driven. Um Ingred you also talked a little bit all of you really talked about that but Ingred you also um talked about it in the sense that you know California is a very diverse state and you have some rural areas and you have some urban areas and you needed to meet all of those different needs. So, one of the questions um that I saw in the chat was, you know, how do you get something like this started in a place where you really feel like it's not going to be received? Well, and that question is open up for for anyone who wants to tackle that one. [laughter] >> I'm going to jump in and echo um Senator Bledso's mention of return on investment. Um so we have to use public resources wisely and efficiently and build public confidence in our public structures. and um this idea of um community school partnerships um coordinators to assist with community school partnerships, leaders to do the same um to leverage and coordinate the resources that we have to support students I think is is critically important and is the um the topelling message when it comes to utilizing tax dollars. Well, >> yeah, I'll jump in as well. I think it is really getting to what is the local local need what is the problem that you're trying to address at the local level right so I given the example and I know this has been the case for some of our rural areas who are really in in jeopardy in terms of fires and ongoing uh and so what can this do again what we found with community schools was that it puts this infrastructure in place where you can really have a rapid response um yes teaching and learning is also at the heart of what we're trying to do but I I think at the local level it is really addressing what the the local identified needs are and what it can do there. >> You know, one of the challenges I think as well is the decentralization of power and control. And oftentimes if you're a KD, if you're a department of education or if you're social services cabinet, letting that go down to local government is allowing them to then control where the needs are and what the community needs to do and get the buy in. But it allows to Bridg's point, it allows teachers to be teachers. And I think once they see that it allows the more freedom, the local level actually is empowering thing. The top allows a little bit more less control, but that has to be something they're willing to do. And then when they do it, we have to have a community ready to step up and say we're going to lead and be responsible and engaged and provide those resources. So, it's definitely a buy in on both sides. >> Great. Thank you for that. And I think a good um I didn't see this in the chat, but an an interesting followup question to that um for the audience might be, you know, given all of the experience that's on this panel right now, what are some of the lessons learned um that you think would be important to share with um the audience as they're, you know, maybe thinking about doing this some or something similar in their own states? what are some of the lessons learned and um maybe what is something that you would tell them not to do [laughter] as they emark em embark on that and that's also open to um all of the panelists >> I guess I'll just go >> go ahead >> um I would say from a funding point of view you know we went through four cohorts here in California um and we kind of kept shifting a bit of the way we determined the weights. Um, so that introduced a little bit of unpredictability there. So if you were a district that decided not to go for cohort one, but instead waited all the way to cohort 4, and so um, you know, the rules of it changed just a little bit. And so that's a lesson learned that we would have kept it consistent, um, because we didn't realize how many districts were thinking, okay, we're not ready for cohort one, we think we'll be ready by cohort three. Um, but then things had shifted. Another lesson learned about what to do is I do really think the investment in state of state support technical assistance really mattered because yes you want things to be locally led but we also in California were really clear about our principles and our values of what we're trying to do across the state and so to have that technical assistance center uh infrastructure it's so much more than just the funding it is how do you make these connections how do you build these relationships how do you leverage and So having go-to technical assistance was incredibly important and in fact it allowed more than the 2500 schools that got a grant to also access that technical assistance uh system that we put in place. So it had the bene benefit of those knock-on effects to others more than the 2500. >> Yeah. And I'll just um echo both of those things and um underscore what Ingred just shared about technical assistance. So we as an as a a non-governmental organization are providing that kind of backbone support to the district setting this up. Um it's I think unique and powerful for us to be doing that as a citizen-led um organization, citizen-led nonprofit um that is saying hey community needs to be at the table and we are community um and and we can be part of doing this with our schools at a high level. So we provide a lot of data, a lot of um technical assistance, a lot of coaching and support. Um and I I think that's key as as Ingred said. The other thing I would say is real clarity around um uh I think the the components of the work that are important. So in this conversation for LPI, we we would say the community schools framework. Um so the um integrated student supports, extended learning time, be really qu clear about the things that we know research supports improve student success and really clear about the outcomes we're after. And they don't have to all be the academic outcomes. We have to understand that there are outcomes prior to realizing those academic outcomes that are really important. If our kids aren't at school, why aren't they aren't at school? Do we understand the root cause? Are we reaching out? is a community- based organization may be the best one to do that to improve attendance. When community- based organizations are part of supporting out of schooltime programs, we see student engagement in the classroom improve and as a result we see improved academic outcomes, but the initial outcome for the community-based organization was actually providing a place where a young person felt belonging and significance. Um, and they show up feeling more confident in school. Um and that partnership and that leadership by the community-based organization was so important in that calculus. So we have to understand it. Um we have to understand its complexity concisely. >> That's exactly right. And I would just put a fine point who you hire ma matters. You're not hire an education expert. A lot of for the coordinator for a frisky is a someone who thinks see a need a need. How do I do it? Who do I bring to the table? is a community engagement connector and they have to be well ingrain uh you know well established in the community to know who's the right person and what the needs are. Yeah, it seems so simple but it is critical I think to how they can implement and then go go through and find the assistance they can find extra help. That's a really important piece that I think we take for granted in being successful. >> That's right. And if I can add one more on top of that, we're doing a great job pinging off of one another here as a group. Um, we have found that it's it's about building trust and relationship in community and between community and the school district. And so to Amanda's point, that person is so important and also coming back to are we building trusted relationships and is that job number one? I would say, you know, I um think of the site coordinator um as sort of the secret sauce when it comes to the success of community schools and that person um you know and it has to be the right person for that particular community for that particular school. Um and it it really through u my observation and through uh the research I've done in community schools, it makes such a huge difference um in all of that. So, we're coming up close to time. Um, and one last question I'm hoping that we could get to is talking a little bit about sustainability. Um, so what in in California and in Kentucky when it comes to all of this good work that has been built up over the years, how are you all thinking about sustainability? And you can define that however you want to. Um, and I know Ingred, you talked a little bit about sustainability from like a like a technical assistance and mind shift perspective. Um, but it could also be financial um, sustainability as well. And Ingret, I think I'll start with you that way. >> Yeah, great question. I mean, we're we're actually at that inflection point right now since we just got through the intended four cohorts of community schools. Um it has been incredible to see the just um coalition that's building around wanting to continue this uh and so for there to be another infusion of state dollars. So I I am anticipating that there will be an ask and um I do think uh similar to Senator Bledo that there is a lot of will and talk around seeing the indicators around academic outcomes, social emotional again just being resilient schools ROI in terms of that readiness and being able to accelerate resources when needed in case of emergencies. And so I do think one strategy will be another infusion of funding probably not to the to the exact same level. Another piece is minimally that we will keep some level of the technical assistance center uh for the state of California because we have just heard that that has been very helpful in having a go-to as the coordinators whether at the district level or the site level as they're sharing practice having that community of practice as to what this means to be a community school. Great. >> Sure. Senator, >> sure. I I completely agree. And the funding there is so critical. It takes time. You can't just fund it for two years and think we're going to see great success immediately. These build upon each other because we're talking about students and their families. Sometimes it's several students. And so you start to see success as trust is built, community is built. It's I would encourage those who are working on this to not leave your legislators out. You know, sometimes you come to them at the end and say, "This is really important. Well, I need to see that early on." And so, I would encourage your school boards, your school advocacy groups, the community leaders when they're working on these things to make sure they're talking to their state rep, their state senator about the uniqueness of their success and then commit to build to to fund to get more than two or three years. You know, the 35 year history for Kentucky is pretty intense. Gone to funding very small to 17.5 million, which for us is a lot, and it's per student. So it's not a this school gets this much and this one gets that based on some random you consensus. This is a per student funding. So it's equal, it's consistent and then that school board can be the flexible one. Advisory boards can decide how they're going to move forward that particular year or two years and they can adjust and so but they have to have the sustained promise of funding on the front end. So they have to work together and I think once they do that's why you've seen sustainability in Kentucky I think be so successful. >> Great. And the last thing I'll add is the idea um and the practice of community organizations, community leaders, faith leaders, business leaders being at the table with our schools um centering students and families and um with educators and all the community partners surrounding them with all the resources that they bring to the table. um and um bringing um leveraging those resources for the ends that the public school emphasis on public um has as its goals for young people. And when we create that condition and that practice, we believe sustainably communities will continue to do that um in a way that is transformational. Well, I don't know that there's a better way to end this panel discussion than on that note. Um, thank you all so much for joining us this afternoon. It was incredibly insightful. I um selfishly wish we had another hour um because I would love to to learn more from all of you. But thank you for taking the time out to join us this afternoon and thank you um to the audience and all of you for your great questions. um and your engagement throughout the presentation and the panel discussion. Um just uh as a reminder, this is the first in a series of um uh webinars that we're having. We're having another two in the beginning of December. One focused on um redesigning high schools and how to engage today's students. And the second one is on f on funding for um for schools and um for student success. So if you haven't already, please register for the rest of the webinars in this series. Thank you all for coming. Thank you to our co-hosts um for this webinar series and hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you.