Oakland Unified School District Community Schools: Supporting Students, Teachers, and Families. Knowledge Brief
Author: Stanford University, John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities (JGC)
Date: 2015-12-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: School Districts,Community Schools,Educational Change,Models,Partnerships in Education,Community Organizations,School Community Programs,Well Being,Academic Achievement,Educational Policy,Educational Improvement,Elementary Secondary Education,Program Implementation,Interviews,Educational Trends,Integrated Services

Oakland is home to one of the most demographically diverse populations in the country, with residents of different racial, ethnic, national, linguistic, and other cultural groups. In response to these vast disparities, in 2010, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) launched an initiative to transform all district schools into full service community schools. OUSD's efforts are consistent with broader trends in education reform to improve student outcomes. Nationally, as research has shown that students living in poverty face numerous obstacles to educational success, community schools are increasingly being utilized as a strategy to address educational inequities. The community school model is characterized by well-coordinated partnerships between schools and community-based organizations to deliver integrated services designed to improve the well-being of children and families and promote student academic success. This document, along with a series of accompanying briefs, present findings from the first year of a planned three-year study of Oakland community schools. As OUSD continues to increase its number of community schools, leaders aim to document and assess their current efforts with an eye to improving policies and practices that will help all schools reach the initiative's goals. To this end, OUSD engaged the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities (Gardner Center) at Stanford University in a collaborative partnership to assess these early efforts and distill key lessons to support scale-up. During this first study year, the Gardner Center, together with OUSD, identified five community school sites, representing a range of elementary, middle, and high schools, for in-depth research. These schools, considered by district staff as relatively mature community school sites, were selected to offer lessons regarding implementation of the complex constellation of services that community schools offer, the organizational structures that sustain these services, and the implications for teaching and learning in schools. During Spring 2015, Gardner Center researchers interviewed the principal, teachers, partner agency staff, and the community school manager at each site. They also analyzed administrative data for each of the five sites to examine school-level trends over time. [The Gardner Center would like to acknowledge our OUSD partners as well as the Kaiser Foundation Hospital Fund for Community Benefit Programs at East Bay Community Foundation for their support. For the main report, &quot;Oakland Unified School District Community Schools: Understanding Implementation Efforts to Support Students, Teachers, and Families,&quot; see ED573279. For the accompanying Knowledge Briefs, &quot;Teaching and Learning in Oakland Community Schools. Knowledge Brief,&quot;see ED573277; for &quot;Organizational Structures to Support Oakland Community Schools. Knowledge Brief,&quot; see ED573281; and for &quot;Integrated Services and Supports in Oakland Community Schools. Knowledge Brief,&quot; see ED573283.]