CSNetwork

Meaningful Local Engagement Under ESSA

/in , , /by

By: Hayin Kim, Partners for Each and Every Child

Stakeholders – students, families, educators, community leaders and partners — represent the core beliefs and needs of the communities and students they serve, and must play a greater role in ensuring educational equity and excellence. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) offers local leaders an opportunity to work with stakeholders to shape their state’s educational equity policy agenda. Stakeholders – students, families, educators, community leaders and partners — represent the core beliefs and needs of the communities and students they serve, and must play a greater role in ensuring educational equity and excellence. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) offers local leaders an opportunity to work with stakeholders to shape their state’s educational equity policy agenda.

ESSA requires each state, district, and school to consult with stakeholders on issues ranging from how best to disburse federal funds, to how to support schools that serve struggling or high-need students. The specific consultation requirements vary across programs, but the focus on engagement is consistent — states and districts have ample opportunity to commit to engagement with all stakeholders in an ongoing and meaningful way.

To support these efforts, Partners for Each and Every Child (Partners for) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) developed Meaningful Local Engagement Under ESSA — a guide for local education agencies (LEAs) and school leaders as they engage with stakeholders on ESSA and other policy and decision-making opportunities.

What Do We Mean By ‘Stakeholder Engagement’?

Stakeholders refers to the diverse array of community members who are involved and invested in districts, schools, programs, and outcomes for students.
Engagement is the process of communicating to, learning from, and partnering with stakeholders that acknowledges the unique needs and strengths of the stakeholders involved. We believe that stakeholder engagement requires collaboration and should be meaningful: it should be inclusive, clear, effective, and ongoing in order to support educational equity and excellence, especially for our most vulnerable students and schools.

What is in the Handbook?

Part 1: LEA & School Planning: Why Local Engagement?
Part 1 connects engagement around local planning to the new state system under ESSA, aligning engagement with local decision-making.

Part 2: Making Engagement More Effective
Recognizing the differing information, participation, and engagement needs and assets of various stakeholder groups, Part 2 offers a compiled set of engagement resources, tailored to meet the needs of specific constituent groups, including:

– Students and Youth
– Parent, Families, and Guardians
– Educators (Teachers and Leaders)
– Rural Communities
– Tribal Leadership and Native Communities
– Policymakers
– Leveraging Community Partnerships

Part 3:  Tools for Building an Engagement Strategy
Part 3 includes four resources to begin understanding and strategizing around engagement at the local level.

Part 4: Reference Material

Thank you to California Community Schools Network members who helped review the handbook.

For more on how state engagement efforts under ESSA have been meaningful thus far, and how we can continue to share the responsibility for educational equity and excellence, see our review of ESSA state plans submitted in April/May 2017 – Process and Protest.

Deanna Niebuhr

Community Schools: An Evidence-Based Strategy for Equitable School Improvement

/in , , , , , , , /by

This brief by the Learning Policy Institute examines the research on community schools, with two primary emphases. First, it explores whether the 2015 federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) opens the possibility of investing in well-designed community schools to meet the educational needs of low-achieving students in high-poverty schools. And second, it provides support to school, district, and state leaders as they consider, propose or implement a community school intervention in schools targeted for comprehensive support.

CSNetwork

How to Engage Families to Improve Student Outcomes

/in , , /by

Family engagement is a key factor in addressing the achievement and opportunity gaps – and ultimately achieving equity in education.

Research shows that family engagement makes a difference.

Family involvement in a child’s education is the single most important predictor of student academic success. Research over several decades has shown that when families are involved in their own child’s education, their child does better in school – regardless of family background (e.g. race, educational level, income, marital status). Students with involved families are more likely to:

  • Earn higher grades and test scores
  • Enroll in higher-level programs
  • Attend school regularly
  • Have fewer behavioral problems
  • Pass their classes, be promoted, and graduate

But not all family engagement activities have such a significant effect on student success. So how can schools engage families in ways that really move the needle on improved student outcomes?

6 Effective Practices for Family Engagement

Family engagement practices occur on a spectrum, from participation to partnership. Participation includes many traditional methods of engagement, like volunteering in the classroom, participating in school site councils, or attending events. However, focusing on authentic partnerships between teachers and families can do more to ensure academic success for students. These partnerships occur, and have full impact, when family engagement activities are connected to student learning – and when there is capacity building and support for both families and teachers.

How do schools and school districts build systems of practice that foster meaningful partnerships between teachers and families?

1. Districts and school communities adopt a strengths-based vision.
A strengths-based vision acknowledges that each family has something powerful and positive to offer their children, and respects that each family is its child’s first and most influential teacher.

2. Teams (not individual staff) are responsible for planning, design, and quality assessment.
A representative family engagement team includes a school administrator, 1-2 teachers, 2-3 parents, all staff members in coordination of services roles, and at least 2 students in high schools.

3. Family engagement activities focus on student success.
The family engagement team leverages their common interest in student success, using student data to create goals and assess the impact of its activities based on movement toward these goals (e.g. success is measured not by how many people show up, but on whether students are doing better and continue to improve).

4. Family engagement efforts are rooted in continuous improvement.
Family engagement teams develop and test an annual plan through a cycle of inquiry. Using student outcomes to assess the impact of activities, family engagement becomes a central strategy for academic success.

5. Capacity building for teachers and other school staff is a priority.
Employing a strenghts-based approach, teachers are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and tools they need to actively and effectively engage families. Family engagement is a priority in the overall plan for teacher professional development, and the district commits the necessary resources to build this capacity, including making investments in training and coaching.

6. Capacity building for families strives to address unequal power dynamics.
Capacity building for families is focused on leveraging the assets each family brings to the table. Families are provided the knowledge and tools they need to support their own child’s education at home and at school.

Whenever possible, teachers and families are trained together to promote partnering through equal access to information and to build a sense that everyone is working as a team to support students. Developing authentic partnerships between families and school staff takes a real commitment, and can feel like a daunting task. But with training, coaching, and support, teachers and families can partner in ways that have a tangible impact on student achievement.

For more information, additional resources, and citations for stats provided above, please see our short chapter: Why Family Engagement Matters, co-authored by High Expectations Parental Service and Partnership for Children & Youth.

CSNetwork

Prop 47 Grant Application Now Available

/in , /by

The much anticipated Request for Applications (RFA) for the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Fund: Learning Communities for School Success grant program has been released by the California Department of Education (CDE). This grant program was established by SB 527 and AB 1014, following the passage of Proposition 47.

There was some initial confusion about the timeline and due dates, but the CDE webpages have been updated and now contain the correct information. Please consult the RFA for the full timeline on page 21.

Districts with high rates of chronic absence, out-of-school suspensions, and school drop outs will be given priority for these grants aimed at improving student outcomes by reducing truancy and supporting students who are at risk of dropping out of school or are victims of crime.

Click here to access the RFA and other required forms.

Letter of Intent Due Date: April 21, 2017

Application Due Date: May 10, 2017

We’d love to get a sense of who is applying — if you decide to apply, please let us know.

Please also feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Contact: Deanna Niebuhr, Senior Director of Community Schools, Partnership for Children & Youth
Deanna@partnerforchildren.org
510-830-4200 x1605

CSNetwork

Resources for Upcoming Grant Opportunity

/in , /by

The Request for Proposals for the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Fund: Learning Communities for School Success grants (through CDE, from Prop 47 savings) will be released by March 21 or sooner. We know from the legislation (SB 527 / AB 1014) that districts with high rates of chronic absence, out-of-school suspensions, and school dropouts will be given priority when grants are awarded.

We’re suggesting that districts start compiling their data now because the proposal writing timeline is expected to be very short.

As we’ve looked toward the release of this RFP, we’ve provided a number of resources and information over the past couple of months. Here they are in one place:

Resources:

  1. Data Collection Webinar – Rocking Your Next Needs Assessment, Public Profit
  2. Overview of the grant opportunitiy, Children Now
  3. Making Data Work in California, Attendance Works
  4. In School + On Track, California Office of the Attorney General

Background Information about the Grant Opportunity:

  1. New Community School Grant Opportunity by Ed Honowitz, Education Policy Advisor of then-Senator Carol Liu, September 26, 2016
  2. Grant Opportunity: Get out your data and start planning now! December 14, 2016
  3. Tracking Chronic Absence: Getting Ready for Prop 47 Grants or Just Setting Up for Improvement, January 31, 2017
CSNetwork

Tracking Chronic Absence: Getting Ready for Prop 47 Grants or Just Setting Up for Improvement

/in , /by

By Deanna Niebuhr
Senior Director, Community Schools Initiatives at Partnership for Children & Youth

The Request for Proposals for the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Fund: Learning Communities for School Success grants (through CDE, from Prop 47 savings) is expected out this March. We know from the legislation that districts with high chronic absence, out-of-school suspension, and dropout rates will be given priority when grants are awarded.

We’re suggesting that districts with high rates start compiling their data now because the proposal writing timeline is expected to be very short. For those that are not yet tracking chronic absence data, this is a great opportunity to put tracking systems in place. Whether or not you apply for a Prop 47 grant, this data is critical for making meaningful and steady improvement in student engagement and school climate, which are foundational to a whole child/community school approach.

Using your school data, the pathway to improvement can steadily be made clearer. This is especially true for chronic absence, defined as an individual student missing 10% or more of the school year for any reason (i.e. both excused and unexcused absences). Chronic absence in the early grades is highly predictive of later struggles. Research shows that chronic absence as early as kindergarten is associated with lower third grade reading scores and academic struggles as far down the road as fifth grade. This is especially true for students living in poverty and experiencing more than one year of chronic absence.(1)

Districts have been able to turn their numbers around when they have monitored chronic absence, worked with schools and families to figure out the nuances and patterns behind these absences, and then addressed the underlying issues unique to their school communities.

Attendance Works has free tools to use in tracking chronic absence. Their brief, Making Data Work in California: Leveraging Your District Data and Student Information System (SIS) to Monitor and Address Chronic Absence, lays out the basics on chronic absence and provides a checklist for setting up a tracking system.

If you have any questions about preparing for the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Fund grant, please contact Deanna Niebuhr at Deanna@partnerforchildren.org.

 

(1) Hedy N. Chang & Mariajose Romero. Present, Engaged & Accounted For: The Critical Importance of Addressing Chronic Absence in the Early Grades, National Center for Children in Poverty: September 2008.

CSNetwork

Grant Opportunity: Get out your data and start planning now!

/in , , /by

Back in September, the Governor signed into law Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Fund: Learning Communities for School Success. This program takes savings from Proposition 47 and creates a grant program for school districts to implement research-based strategies to improve school climate and mitigate the school-to-prison pipeline.

The focus of these grants is to support “evidence-based, non-punitive programs and practices to keep the state’s most vulnerable students in school.” Using a community schools approach – integrating comprehensive services into schools through community partnerships – is explicitly named as an eligible strategy. Districts interested in launching a community school initiative should consider applying.

For districts that are ready for deeper dives into more targeted strategies, the list of eligible activities also includes, but is not limited to, the following:

  • Strategies to improve attendance and reduce chronic absenteeism
  • Restorative practices, restorative justice models, or other programs to improve retention rates, reduce suspensions, and reduce student contact with law enforcement agencies
  • Social-emotional learning, positive behavior interventions and supports, culturally responsive practices, and trauma-informed strategies

The California Department of Education (CDE) will be administering the grant program. The request for proposals is expected to be released in early 2017. Local education agencies (school districts, county offices of education, or charter schools) may apply for a grant. Funding levels are still being determined, but we know that grants will be for three years of funding. Grant recipients must make a matching expenditure of cash or in-kind contributions that equal at least 20 percent of the total grant awarded.

There are some good reasons to get started early in planning for your application. The RFP is expected to come out in early 2017 – January or February at the latest. And because funds must be expended in the current fiscal year, we are anticipating a quick turnaround time. In addition, planning timelines will be compressed as grant recipients will be required to align their funded strategies with their goals in their local control accountability plan (LCAP).

Who will receive these grants?

In selecting grant recipients, CDE will give priority to LEAs based on the following criteria:

  • High rates of chronic absenteeism, out-of-school suspension, and school dropout
  • Located in a community with a high crime rate
  • Have a significant representation of foster youth among its pupil enrollment

Get started now:

Based on these priorities, we encourage you to start your proposal planning process now so that you’re ready to go when the RFP comes out in the new year.

  • Gather your relevant student and neighborhood data.
  • Think about which strategies will make the biggest impact for your vulnerable student populations.
  • Think about which of your community partners can help to implement your strategy.
  • If you need additional assistance in thinking through how this grant can be most useful to your students, please contact us and we’ll help you or connect you to an organization that can.

For more information, contact Deanna Niebuhr at Partnership for Children & Youth: Deanna@partnerforchildren.org or 510-830-4200 x1605.

The above information was provided by Children Now. Click here for their summary.

CSNetwork

New Grant Opportunity for Schools and Communities to Improve School Climate

/in , , , , , , , /by

On September 23, 2016, Governor Jerry Brown signed the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Fund: Learning Communities for School Success program into law. This new program will provide grants to local school districts to implement research-based strategies to improve school climate and to mitigate the school-to-prison pipeline.

Get Ready to Apply:

We encourage school districts and community organizations to start preparing now for this competitive grant opportunity.

A Request for Proposal process is expected to begin in early 2017.

CSNetwork

Count me in! Paperless Enrollment in School Meals for Students in Medi-Cal Households

/in , , /by

By Elyse Homel Vitale, Senior Advocate, California Food Policy Advocates

As community schools build out their comprehensive support for students, it doesn’t hurt to go back to the basics: Is everyone who’s eligible getting free school meals? And are we doing all we can to make it easy and welcoming for students to sign up?

Here in California, 3 in 5 public school students are eligible to receive free or reduced-price school meals. However, on an average school day, nearly one million or about one-third of eligible students miss out on the health benefits of school lunch. The numbers are worse for school breakfast. Two million students, about two-thirds, miss out on breakfast. Access to school meals matters – well-nourished kids are better-prepared students; they are able to learn, grow, play, and achieve to their fullest potential.

So what can we do to improve access? For a student to receive a free or reduced-price school meal, they must first be certified as eligible for the program. There are a couple of ways school districts can certify students as eligible, including paper applications and direct certification. California’s existing direct certification process uses other entitlement program data, such as CalFresh, to identify low-income students and certify them for free school meals – no separate paper application for meals is required. With 1 in 3 Californians now enrolled in Medi-Cal, there is a ripe opportunity to get students signed up by leveraging the reach of Medi-Cal.

Medicaid (Medi-Cal) Direct Certification is a powerful tool that school districts will be able to use to increase their paperless enrollment in school meals. It is believed that if fully adopted across the state, an additional 500,000 students OR MORE will be paperlessly enrolled in school meals. Students in Medi-Cal households will be identified through a secure data matching process; school districts will be notified of these matched students; and eligible students will be paperlessly enrolled in free and reduced-price school meals.

For the coming school year, California’s public school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools are approved to participate in Medicaid Direct Certification, upon completion of a required training.

Medicaid Direct Certification has important benefits for students, families, and school districts alike. Here’s how:

First, decreased application burden and decreased error rates. The burden – for both schools and parents – of submitting and processing a paper application will be removed when a student is directly certified. The error rates associated with paper applications also decreases as direct certification increases.

Second, increased school funding. Previous pilots of Medicaid Direct Certification show that the program is likely to result in more students actually consuming school meals, on top of just being enrolled. As school meal participation increases, school districts draw down the associated additional federal and state-funded reimbursements for meals served. Furthermore, as additional eligible students are identified through Medicaid Direct Certification, schools can leverage increased education dollars through the Local Control Funding Formula.

Lastly, improved access to healthy school meals. In addition to more students being identified as eligible, increasing direct certification is related to the number of schools and school districts that qualify for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). CEP is an option that schools serving communities with high rates of poverty can utilize to make breakfast and lunch available to all students free of charge. When CEP is used, alternative models of serving meals, like Breakfast After the Bell, work best and reach even more students.

Medicaid Direct Certification is a well-tested, efficient, and effective tool for increasing enrollment in school meals. We know it works, and we know that there are benefits for schools and families alike. While Medicaid Direct Certification is not yet available statewide, it is coming, and there are steps you can take to make sure there is a smooth and quick rollout: (1) Ask about direct certification in your schools (Is your district regularly conducting direct certification? Do they plan on adding in Medicaid Direct Certification when it becomes available?). (2) Initiate conversations with district, school board, and community leaders about this exciting opportunity and how it aligns with your vision of integrated health, services, and academics.

Additional resources:

CFPA’s fact sheet on Medicaid Direct Certification.
Check out the infographic.
Learn more about CFPA’s school meal enrollment advocacy.
Why School Nutrition Matters by CFPA & Partner for Children & Youth
Note: The California Department of Education has agreed to announce the required training dates in spring 2017 and is committed to making Medicaid Direct Certification available statewide in the 2017-18 school year.

Contact:
Elyse Homel Vitale, Senior Advocate, California Food Policy Advocates at
elyse@cfpa.net or 510-433-1122 ext. 206

CSNetwork

5 Key Strategies for Financing Your Community School Initiative

/in , , , /by

When staff from San Mateo County, Redwood City, Redwood City School District, Sequoia Union High School District, community-based organizations, and private funders realized that they were meeting multiple times about different issues affecting the same children and families, they decided to formalize their partnerships through the creation of Redwood City 2020. Through this, the partner organizations created a vehicle for having more comprehensive conversations, setting priorities more strategically, and ultimately implementing programs with greater impact. Redwood City’s community school effort is an initiative of Redwood City 2020 and represents a pooling of partner resources. Despite declining budgets during the recession, Redwood City 2020 maintained support for its community schools, citing the significant return on investment they see each year.

In the recent era of tight public agency budgets, the community school approach has offered a strategic method for making tough budget decisions – making the most of existing resources. The following are five key strategies for financing your community school initiative. This information was pulled from a brief by the Partnership for Children & Youth, profiling five different community school initiatives.

1. Community schools are a community-wide investment
A common misconception about community schools is that this work is the district’s responsibility, when schools and their teachers are already stretched to the limit. On the contrary, the community school approach is about school districts turning to the community (especially county and city agencies) to help provide services and programs outside the expertise and beyond the resources of schools. The funding matrices in the Community Profiles section of the brief will show that school districts are contributing much less than 50% of the total resources. In Sacramento City Unified School District, for example, 85% of the overall budget for the initiative comes from partners or outside grants.

2. Don’t rely on a specific grant
While many communities successfully use competitive grants, such as the Full Service Community Schools or Promise Neighborhoods grants, this funding is often not sustainable. While additional funding may be helpful, it is important to note that many community school efforts have been launched in response to severe budget shortages as a way to use existing funds more strategically. Funding for community schools comes primarily from its partners, not from a specific grant or funding stream.

3. Align existing resources by leveraging partnerships
The core tenant of the community school approach is that the partnering entities combine resources. In many cases, successful community school efforts have been started with little to no new resources, but rather through partners re-deploying and re-allocating existing resources. This includes not just funding, but also time, personnel, and/or other assets. Through a coordinated system, a community school offers more effective programs and services than any one of its partners could offer on its own and eliminates duplicative efforts.

4. Set up clear structures for partnerships
Adopting a community school approach means that all partners must adopt a new way of doing business. Partners must commit to shared decision-making and put real resources on the table. The success of a community school effort is directly correlated with the strength of the infrastructure supporting its partnerships. While developing these relationships and systems takes time, it is a critical step in developing community schools. Discussions about filling service gaps, and determining which services should be offered, need to take place after each partner understands the purpose and role of the collaboration. In other words, decisions about how to work together are made before decisions about what to do. A full list of important characteristics of this governance infrastructure can be found on page 5 of the brief.

5. Invest in coordination of services
To ensure that a comprehensive and integrated set of services and programs is developed and functions well, the collaborative must make an investment in coordination. Without staff in charge of coordination, it is not possible to maximize the resources brought together by the partner agencies. While very few public funding streams are dedicated to such coordination, there are several federal, state, and local public funding streams that can be used for such costs, including Medi-Cal Administrative Activities (MAA), Title I, and general funds (see the Community Profiles in the brief for examples of funding streams most commonly used to pay for coordination and administration). Some successful community school efforts have pieced together cash and in-kind resources from each of the partners within a collaborative to cover the costs associated with coordination. To ensure adequate coordination is in place, community school efforts should prioritize obtaining policy and fiscal commitments from each partnering entity.

But you haven’t even mentioned LCFF or the new grant opportunity under SB 527.
Local Control is the perfect context in which to start making these kinds of systems and programmatic decisions and investments. However, we are not proposing that you use LCFF funds right off the bat. There are key funding streams that should be maximized and leveraged before LCFF funds are tapped. There is an exciting new grant opportunity for community schools under SB 527 that will be coming in late winter or early spring of 2017. But some of the most important work you can do in using a community school approach is to figure out how to make the best use of the funding you and your partners already have.

This financing brief provides evidence and ideas from successful, longstanding efforts that school districts, counties, cities, non-profit organizations, and other public entities can use to begin exploring how to form community school partnerships that support student success. Click here to read Community School Financing: Aligning Local Resources for Student Success, and learn from five different communities about how they financed their community school efforts in the midst of the recession.