Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1527898
Gilbert High's community schools teacher lead Nikki Resch and site coordinator Isabel Tabares-Torres talk about their roles. Participating teams' progress with community school implementation varies widely. The Association of Rowland Educators and district partners, for example, are preparing their first application for state funding. Nine of Pasadena Unified's 23 schools are community schools — three elementary, three middle and three high schools. Earlier this year, all eight of the Mountain View School District's schools were awarded state implementation grants. Here are thoughts from local presidents who attended the Learning Lab: " Being able to bring 16 members, including our superintendent, saved MVTA and MVSD months of creative work. We feel better prepared to continue the work because we all had the same experience together. We just received the $11.6 million implementation grant; the assets and needs assessment is next.... MVTA has done school site visits and staff luncheons [to build community schools awareness]. This is why seven out of eight community schools site leads applied for the positions when they were posted — they heard our message and were excited to be part of such an important journey!" — LETICIA URIAS, Mountain View Teachers Assn. " It took us from August 2023 to April 2024 to get an MOU. The district didn't want to negotiate.... Now, we have a relationship; the district is holding community schools meetings at sites — it's a paradigm shift. All 13 of our schools are classified as community schools, but only 11 got grant funding. The district funded the other two. We used CTA site visit and member engagement grants for release days for PEA community schools committee members to talk to our parents, attend events. We're still doing one -on-ones with our 615 members." — CELIA MEDINA -OWENS, Pittsburg Education Assn. " Experiencing the Learning lab with our district partners was truly powerful. The conversations within our group, the questions answered, the connections made, the new possibilities imagined, and the support offered from the folks in Anaheim and NEA gave us some much-needed calm in the storm. We came out of those two days with a stronger sense of 'we can do this, and we can take what we are doing well and make it better.'" — DEREK HOLLINGSWORTH, Association of Rowland Educators " At the Learning Lab, I saw that Anaheim's community schools are not test-driven, the curriculum is not based on some tech. Instead, learning is integrated into kids' lives through authentic projects.... The rest of the team (including administrators and a community partner) saw how the union can be helpful in our district. Not only with integrated supports but also with leveraging all resources — [especially] community school teacher leads. It is hard asking for member release time, but they saw how powerful it is with teacher leads freed up." — JONATHAN GARDNER, United Teachers of Pasadena " Our attendance group was small — just one of our site steering committee members and me — but our greatest takeaway was that we need to have representation of some of our district people to come and hear the same information. The only way that this is going to work is if we are all on the same page." — KATHY PRAT T, San Mateo Elementary Teachers Assn. What Teams Learned, What They're Doing 22 cta.org Feature