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…

Educators and policymakers have increasingly turned their attention--and $2.8 billion in funding-- to community school strategies as a way to mitigate the learning of the COVID-19 pandemic. A healing-centered community school implements a whole child approach to teaching and learning to address the fundamental physiological and safety needs of…

In spring 2020, the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the shift to hybrid and remote learning for most schools turned what was once a "homework gap" into a "learning opportunity gap" as devices and internet access became necessary in order to keep students connected and learning. The purpose of this brief is to…

Background: Growing health disparities have a negative impact on young people's educational achievement. Community schools that involve deep relationships with partners across multiple domains address these disparities by providing opportunities and services that promote healthy development of young people, and enable them to graduate from high…

In Fiscal Year 2015-16, the California Children and Families Act has appropriated an average of $440 per child from the state tobacco tax revenue to support early development of children ages 0-5. Based on the proportion of live births in each county, First 5 Kern administered over $10 million of the state funding to support 41 programs in Child…

A community school is a place and a set of partnerships connecting a school, the families of students, and the surrounding community. A community school is distinguished by an integrated focus on academics, youth development, family support, health and social services, and community development. The community school strategy is central to efforts…

Over the past three years, Jobs for the Future (JFF) has engaged deeply with California Career Pathways Trust (CCPT) consortia through both statewide research and technical assistance in order to understand leaders' approaches to implementing and developing sustainable programs. JFF's recent research found that the CCPT funds did advance…

Postgraduate master's programs for in-service teachers may be a promising new avenue in developing research partnership networks that link schools and university and enable collaborative development, sharing and use of knowledge of teacher research. This study explores the way these knowledge processes originating from master's students' research…

The California Children and Families Act of 1998 led to creation of the Kern County Children and Families Commission (First 5 Kern) to support early childhood service programs in Kern County, the third largest county in California that spread a land area as large as the state of New Jersey. In Fiscal Year 2014-15, First 5 Kern administered more…

Design-Based Implementation Research is the process of engaging "learning scientists, policy researchers, and practitioners in a model of collaborative, iterative, and systematic research and development" designed to address persistent problems of teaching and learning. Addressing persistent problems of teaching and learning requires…

Many would agree on the primacy of a high quality education for social and economic health, democracy, and individual prosperity, but scarcely a week goes by that we do not hear that a quality education for all children is not possible. Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) and their partners are told that parents don't care;…

This article describes a ten-year effort led by youth, community organizers, and a range of partners that resulted in two new, successful high schools and showed the power of grassroots mobilization for social justice. Since opening in 2009 and 2010 respectively, Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez High School for College and Career Preparation and…

This is a research case study of an International Higher Education Partnership (IHEP) between Vanguard University of Southern California (VUSC) and the University of Duhok (UoD) in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq funded by the British Council DelPHE-Iraq project targeting Millennial Development Goal (MDG) #3 to promote gender equality and…

Every building, from the smallest school to the tallest skyscraper, uses energy. This energy is most often generated by burning fossil fuels, which releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change. Existing commercial buildings offer a significant opportunity for low-cost, immediate emissions and energy cost…

Across the country many schools and communities are trying to create and support efforts to institutionalize partnerships for learning, including those that rethink the use of time across the school day and year, and across the developmental continuum. Referred to by different terms--integrated, expanded, or complementary learning--the concept has…