Budget Subcommittee No 3 Education Finance — 2026-04-14 (partial)

Good morning Chair and members Sade and Eri the Department of Finance The state has invested billion one Proposition 98 general fund to implement community schools a whole child school improvement strategy focusing on community engagement, providing wellness services, and professional development to support positive school climates and joyful learning opportunities during an expanded school day. This investment has enabled nearly 2,500, one in every four schools in the state, to adopt this model with data indicating that the first cohort of schools that benefited from this investment, showing significant reductions in chronic absenteeism, reduced suspensions, and improved test scores and academic achievement, with the largest gains for historically underserved students. The governor's budget builds on this prior investment and proposes $1 billion ongoing Proposition 98 general fund to expand the community schools model to up to 3,700 more schools and provide ongoing funding to support all existing schools. The goal is for all schools in the state that have an unduplicated people percentage of 65% or more to implement and sustain the community schools model. The administration does not propose a cohort model for the ongoing apportionments program. Eligible schools will be able to opt into funding as soon as this fall. Existing community schools will continue to be funded by the one-time implementation grants and be able to opt into apportionment funding once their implementation grants end. To support the significant expansion of community schools from about 2,500 to over 6,000 schools, the administration proposes alignment of this initiative to the statewide system support, strengthen technical assistance, and accreditation to support California's community schools framework. The community schools model provides a framework for authentic engagement to address student needs and enable joyful and rigorous learning environments. Community schools engage key interest holders to engage in asset mapping and needs assessment, matching barriers to learning with student specific supports and continuous learning, which are key strategies utilized by the state's LEA focused system of support. Page five of the committee agenda shows the four key components of the community schools model. These pillars align to several of the priority areas that LEAs must address in their development of the Local Control Accountability Plan, or LCAP. Planning done through the community schools development process provides cohesion between LCAP strategic planning, blending and braiding funding for several key state funding streams, for example, expanded learning opportunities, universal school meals and universal pre-kindergarten, and meaningful community engagement, positive school climates, and shared governance. In recognition of this alignment between community schools and the LCAP, the administration's proposal explicitly aligns county-level community school implementation to the universal targeted assistance that county offices of education are required to provide in their local educational agencies. This makes particular sense given the numerous studies that indicate that community schools result in positive impacts on student attendance, school climate, and academic achievement, all of which are tracked by the California School Dashboard and are addressed by a statewide system of support. The proposal also includes ongoing funding to support the existing statewide and regional transformational assistance center, S-TAC and R-STAC structures. The TACs will continue in their supportive role to assist schools with implementing community schools with fidelity to the framework. To ensure that community schools are implemented with fidelity and aligned with the California Community Schools Framework adopted by the State Board of Education, the proposal emphasizes increased accountability through the annual self-certification and development of a future accreditation process, as has been done in several other states. As mentioned previously, the proposal aims to better integrate within the larger statewide system of support by clarifying that universal and targeted assistance that county offices of education are required to provide to their school districts and charter schools includes coordinating partnerships and services to support community schools' implementation of their county. Because of how impactful and transformative the community schools model can be, particularly for students with the greatest need, the administration's is for community schools whole child's approach to education to be the way California serves students and families. That concludes my remarks. I am joined by Jessica Holmes with Department of Finance. We're happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. Michael Alferez for the Legislative Analyst's Office. So we are recommending that the legislature continue to fund community schools implementation with one-time grants rather than provide ongoing funding to schools as proposed by the administration. We recognize that the community schools model has been shown to have a variety of benefits for students. However, we do have broader concerns with establishing a new categorical program that's ongoing, that's restricted for specific purposes. We note that in 2013, when the state created LCFF, it eliminated dozens of categorical programs with the goal of streamlining state funding, providing funding more equitably across districts and giving districts more discretion over spending decisions. with the kind of intent that recognizing local school district decision makers have the, or they're better positioned to make decisions to meet the specific needs of their students. One of our primary concerns with establishing a new ongoing program is that this approach presumes that best practices can be scaled statewide. Many categorical programs were created to encourage statewide adoption of practices that were shown to be beneficial for students. However, implementing best practices does not necessarily result in the same type of strong improvements. In some cases, districts do not have the expertise to effectively implement these best practices, or the state might not have the capacity or expertise to support schools to ensure effective implementation to all schools statewide. In addition, state-required activities may be seen with skepticism and may not have sufficient local buy-in for the practices to be implemented effectively. Another concern that we have about new categorical programs is that they typically provide less flexibility for districts compared to LCFF to use their funding, while also creating greater administrative burden as school staff will have to learn program rules and ensure that they are complying with all the additional report requirements. Continuing with the state's one-time funding approach would avoid some of these pitfalls of establishing a new ongoing categorical program, while allowing additional schools to receive startup funding and leaving the decision locally for school districts to determine to continue funding the model locally if there's sufficient benefits for their students. If this, you know, for reference, if the state were to provide the proposed $1 billion as one-time grants, we think that the state could support roughly 700 additional schools through one or more additional cohorts under the current one-time community schools partnership program. We also recommend the legislature consider funding technical assistance for community schools over a longer period of time. Under current law, the system of technical assistance is only available until 2031-32. funding technical assistance over a longer period of time may ensure that districts that have access to support in future years to sustain the model locally, this would provide a baseline level of support for community school implementation in the longer term even if the state does not provide funding for community schools annually Although we do recommend continuing with the current one approach the legislature is interested in providing ongoing funding for community schools. We have several modifications to the proposal that we would recommend. These can be found on page 16 of the agenda. I won't go through all the recommendations, but I'll kind of highlight three key concerns that we have and our associated recommendations. So the first of their concerns is that new recipients of community schools funding would have no substantive requirements for the first three years of receiving funding, with the progress report not being due until 2029-30. Based on our conversation with individuals involved in implementing the community schools model, the application and reporting requirements under the current one-time program help districts begin to identify their community needs, identify key challenges, and access support from technical assistance centers. when needed, even before that they were awarded grant funding under the one-time program. We would recommend sending annual planning and reporting requirements for schools and districts consistent with the current requirements under the one-time program to encourage schools receiving funding to begin their planning and accessing technical assistance earlier on in the process. Secondly, we raise concerns about the state's capacity to support such a large influx of new community schools. The state has funded 2,500 grantees over a period of four years. in four different cohorts, and this, as proposed, are roughly 3,700 additional schools could begin to receive funding in the budget year, many of which may have little to no experience in implementing the community schools model. To address this, we would recommend initially targeting a narrow scope of schools, and then expanding eligibility over multiple years. For example, instead of setting the duplicated pupil percentage eligibility threshold at 65%, the stake is set at 85%, and then phase that down over time to the 65% or at a level the legislature deems appropriate. The last concern that I'll highlight is that the proposed trailer legislation has little detail regarding the proposed accreditation process or how the process will be determined. Broad discretion is given to the technical assistance centers and CDE to develop the accreditation process. So we recommend establishing in statute some expectations around key timelines for associated with the development of the accreditation process, including a status update that includes draft guidelines and estimated costs and to require adoption of the accreditation process several months before districts begin going through the process. We also recommend staggering their accreditation process based on when schools initially began to receive funding. As proposed, potentially 6,200 schools will be up for accreditation in 2033-34 and then every seven years thereafter. So this could limit the ability for the state to provide effective oversight. That concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

You have the Department of Education.

Thank you. Thank you to all three. I think I'm going to keep you here and spend the next few minutes asking more specifics about the proposal, and then we'll bring up panel two afterwards. Let me start with a pretty fundamental question. I think you all referenced the fact that community schools have proven some level of success. I'd like to understand from all three of you, which metrics are you using to identify success? So starting with Department of Finance.

Are you referring to the LPI assessment?

The LPI assessment did have those findings.

That'd be great. Sure. LAO, which data points are you, when you make your comments, are you referring to?

CDE, also, are you referencing LPI report? Or is there additional data?

Do you want to comment?

Yeah, which is still not, that one's still not complete.

I don't believe that it's complete, but there are internal preliminary results that speak to the outcomes that I think CDD can speak more to. Yeah. That's using the APR. So their annual reporting where we're looking at those metrics, but yes, the Hummer was not. Thank you. I just want to make sure we're

So apologies. So the $1 billion is intended to serve 3,700 more schools in addition to the existing implementation grantees that will be ending their implementation grants. And the intention with this is to serve from the awards are varying from $75,000 to $400,000 in different funding bands. and this is an ongoing proposal that does not separate out, because the original program separates out between planning period, implementation period, as well as supplements the technical assistance structure and coordination grants, and as well as the evaluation. So the $4 billion is inclusive of all of those components, and the $1 billion at hand speaks to mostly the apportionment amounts that will be going out, as well as a $10 million amount that will be going out to $10 million.

To clarify, the administration is using the existing program as it stands and as best we can mirroring the governor's budget proposal based on that. We're intending to structure it in a similar way, but focusing on how can the administration scale up for these schools. Would you like to chime in?

And in fact, it's still being allocated now, which is why I think my colleague was mentioning that the $1 billion that we're talking about is very specific to continuing the implementation grant amounts in a slightly lower level. So we all...

that they would continue to receive their existing CCSPP grants to the extent that their ongoing grant would be more or less than what they're currently receiving. They would continue to receive as much as they would have otherwise received. So, how many are in the cohort that is running out of funds in the current school year? So for the budget year 2026-21, Cohort 1 will be dropping off, and that will be 458 school sites or 76 LEAs and the subsequent years if you would like to go into that No let me start there so we can go step by step

So the administration's estimate, the drop-off of each cohort will be around $125 million. So in order to continue those 458 schools into this model next year and keep them funded, it will require $125 million. Yes, and to clarify, for the governor's budget proposal as it stands is proposing an adjustment. So for the schools in the budget year... Let me see how to explain this.

Yeah, I think we wanted to just clarify again that under the one-time program, There's about, I think it's roughly $33.2 billion that's going for implementation grants, and those are five-year grants. So that's why under the current proposal, the amount is lower. If we find the cost of providing ongoing funding to the existing community schools, all 2,500 of them is about $500 million annually. But that would begin to phase in once they run out of their implementation grant period, which wouldn't occur until...

Well, we would note that it wouldn't be until 27, 28 in the budget year. All of the folks, a cohort one will be in year five in the budget year. And to clarify, it is the $125 million that will be added on, or the finances estimate each year for the cohorts that will be dropping off and receiving apportionments with the governor's budget.

So the proposal does not separate out in planning and implementation periods as the existing CCSPP program does. What the intention of this proposal is, is to allow the first three years to act as a planning period. So up until 2029, the administration anticipates for this period to be for schools to ramp up that are opting in in the budget year. And once that 2029 year comes around, that is when the submission of the progress report is, that's when the annual implementation plan should be presented, and that is as well when the self-certification process begins. So there is not a separated grant It a one apportionment that ongoing but the administration envisions for the first three years to act as a planning period

The administration's intention was to mirror similarly to the timeline within the CCSPP program. and the three years are meant to serve as a ramp-up period and recognizing the amount of schools that will be entering into the program and that they are entirely new to community schools, and so our vision was to give them sufficient time to ramp up and really plan for what it means to implement a community school as aligned with the framework and with Fidelity.

They are not required to spend three years of planning.

So for the 2029 year, if the administration is anticipating for these schools to opt in in the budget year, the planning, so the three years is meant for them to plan. And in 2029 is when the progress report is due, is when the implementation plan needs to be presented to their local educational body, and is when the self-certification process starts. So by way of the requirements, we're intending for that period to be when implementation starts.

I don't think there really is much of a change, to be honest, with the exception that the amounts that we're providing to these LEAs are a little bit higher than they would have received under CCSPP, and they get an extra year to do it. Other than that, the requirement for the original planning grants for the CCSPP, and I'm sorry, I keep using that acronym, the California Community Schools Partnership Program, was to, after those two years, and actually in the current system or in the current program, they could have been done after one year, but some chose to do one year, some chose to do two, that they have an implementation plan. And then once they had their implementation plan in place, then that's when they would apply for the implementation grant and then move forward. So we are mirroring the existing. We think the existing process was really helpful and useful, and there was a lot of value there. And so we are mirroring that in the process. We're just changing the amount of money provided from the beginning and then adding an extra year to the extent that folks who are now opting in had never thought about being a community school before. And then just from the existing perspective, there was originally in the initial cohorts a much longer planning and implementation period. But as we scaled up and had much more supportive technical assistance centers, we found that that timeline wasn't as needed. And so it did kind of decline to one to two years for planning because they have such robust support. And that wasn't available in the initial few years.

that incorrectly. Correct. Yeah, the implementation does not have to wait until 2039 if a school site believes that they have adequate resources in place and are able to implement the community schools at full-scale for their school. But I

that our intention with this proposal and given CDE's answer add-on as well as that with the adequate with the technical assistance structure that's in place at the regional and state transformational assistance center level as well as within the counties with the existing coordination grants as well as the support that will be coming in the budget year with within the statewide system of support, that this support will be able to help facilitate schools that are just starting within the program.

Sorry, just to clarify one thing. So you said that no one's being funded for planning, and I just want to clarify something. Specifically for planning. Specifically for planning. So at the end of this three-year period and any time before that, so up until that period, an LEA, in order to continue to receive these funds, has to complete an implementation plan. The implementation plan is the planning document that was required in the current iteration. So I think we disagree that there's no planning process envisioned here, that LEAs can just go for a money grab and not have to do anything meaningful to get those funds. I think we feel very strongly that we've built that into this.

Yes, and I also would like to add on for your comment that it was the administration's vision for community schools, given how impactful they have shown to be through data, to be implemented with fidelity and to have accountability measures that ensure that it's, using your words, are not a money grab. The administration feels that this program is very impactful and we would agree that we would want it to be implemented with fidelity And I sorry could you repeat your question Yeah so we identified with million of the billion is which is for the 458 schools that are going to phase out of the first cohort which we need that just to continue funding

That is the intention with our estimates, correct?

That is our estimate. That is our assumption.

We do think there's additional support needed. The technical centers need to be maintained at the county office of ed levels. There is a desire to combine that with a differentiated assistance support, but if we're to scale, there probably needs to be additional resources. We could use extension plan funding, but they will probably need dollars to specifically help community schools and maintain the support level they have currently.

So the governor's budget proposal does include an additional $10 million ongoing for the technical assistance structure. And as well as mentioned in my opening remarks, the separate governor's budget proposal will include $13.3 million towards the universal and targeted assistance within the statewide system of support, which is intended for those funds to also, for our county offices of education to integrate their supports and with the community schools model so counties are able to support community schools within that universal and targeted assistance bubble.

Okay, there's eight.

I'm sorry, could you repeat your question?

So, to clarify, it's eight. regional transformation assistance centers and one state TA center. So the vision is for two in the proposal the language includes two million ongoing to the state S-TAC and the rest to be divvied up between the other R-TACs and the language as it stands is at minimum five R-TACs and so it's up to CDE to contract from currently there are eight contracts they have but it could be between five or as many as CDE contracts with um I don't know if you've heard it before but I think I heard it pretty clearly now from CDE who is in charge of that that that is not enough to be able to support the the need of expanding in this way is that something you had heard before Yeah I think it important to note that so to your earlier question about evenly distributed amongst it won't be because currently the CCSPP grantees are not equally allocated, and there's a slight differential in the funding amounts as a result of that. I would also note that the dollars that we are proposing or in addition to funding that these folks will continue, the R-TACs and the S-TAC will continue to receive all the way through 2930. In addition, county offices of education will also be continuing to receive their coordination grants. That's $20 million a year all the way through 2930. So I think that there's certainly significant resources in the technical assistance centers currently, and we anticipate that there'll need to be a conversation in the coming years about how we deal with the cost of that in an ongoing manner. But certainly there's quite a bit of resource in the tax right now and the counties.

Yeah, so in recognition of the fact that extension grants will likely no longer be necessary when we put in this ongoing funding, we are proposing to revert. We did not have a plan for expending those funds at this point, but plan to have a more detailed proposal in the May revision. I think, you know, hearing from the field about the different needs, I think there's probably certainly some needs around the ongoing support structure, the system of support that is specific to the community schools. And we can certainly, well, we're certainly talking to folks about that. I know there also interest in understanding better the specific impacts for middle schools and high schools So that something that we also looking at And then also whether there are needs within the field for schools that are just coming on around things like professional development or other components of community schools that they need additional funds on a one-time basis to kind of bring themselves up to speed on. So we're getting a lot of really important and rich feedback from the field, and we'll have a proposal for you in May.

Of course, colleagues.

So one of the four pillars of community schools is integrated supports. And this governor's budget proposal intends to continue to uplift the community schools framework, inclusive of those four pillars. And so for new school sites that are opting into the apportionment, they are required to submit an implementation plan in the 2029 year and lay out how they will be facilitating and implementing as aligned with the community schools framework. And so a school is provided this funding and has a flexibility in order to leverage different state programs inclusive of universal or ELOP, TK, universal meals, et cetera.

I would just piggyback on that. That is not only just part of the pillar, but in the annual planning report, they have to identify sustainable methods for maintaining the program. and that includes looking at existing resources and bringing together their funds. So the coherent sustainability is the core of community schools and so it's utilizing the 21st century, the ACES and the ELOP to build on the community schools as well. I would say that our technical assistance centers have been really instrumental in helping them determine the best ways to utilize those dollars, but the expectation is that there is supposed to be coherence amongst the funds.

We don't collect data on the Dream Resource Center. I think that was asked previously.

But I think it's important to note that there is statute in the current CCSPP program that encourages CCSPP grantees to include Dream Resource Center along with their community schools model.

Thank you. And good morning, Chair Alvarez and members of the committee. It's great to be here to talk about this important topic. I'm here in my role as founding president and CKO, chief knowledge officer of the Learning Policy Institute. As you noted, our previous study was referenced. I am not going to go back and repeat those findings. But I will quickly point to two other data points, since you were asking about data, that inform my recommendations. We are conducting a rigorous study of Cohort 2 right now. But meanwhile, there are other data available. If you look at page 3, paragraph 1 of my written testimony, just looking at the state data that are publicly available at the rate of growth in our schools generally and in our community schools the first and second cohorts of community schools have been improving at a rate significantly outpacing our average achievement gains We calculated that from the data that we have By 2024-25, the roughly 1,000 schools in the first two cohorts have seen gains in math proficiency rates of four percentage points, which is a percentage point higher than the state average. It's a 25% increase for cohort one schools, a 20% increase for cohort two schools. The state as a whole is progressing at a rate less than 10% gain. So you can just see that the community schools are gaining both in English language arts and in math, and those data are there on page three. And then to understand what drives community school improvements, we've deeply studied two initiatives. The West Current Consortium is a rural group of districts in Central Valley, and LAUSD, the state's largest district. Both of them had community schools initiatives on a smaller scale before the current CCSPP.

But if you look at page five, there's two graphs that show that when they first launched the community school initiatives in their districts, the blue line, you can see a modest gain in achievement for the community schools relative to other schools. When the state grants came in, there's a very sharp increase in achievement. So over a seven-year period of time, you can see that the state's investment really multiplied greatly and accelerated the sharp increase in achievement, both in Los Angeles and in Kern. And the comparison schools that were also schools that are high-poverty schools were sort of flat during that first period of time in LAUSD and then improved at a much less steep rate. And in Kern, the comparison schools were going down and did not improve even as the community schools increased. We did a deep dive to really look at why, and so that's going to inform my recommendations. And I'll go right to those because I know we have a lot to cover. There are five things that emerged for us as we have looked at all these data. First, that technical assistance for the grantees promotes effective implementation, particularly if it focuses on certain things. And so I want to note that, of course, we have this robust technical assistance system, and it is important for it to continue, as you've already noted. The things that seem to really matter are focusing on centering high-quality community-connected instruction. In LAUSD, where they showed these very outsized gains, they focused on project-based learning, on restorative practices. And for the high schools and middle schools, they focused on linked learning, which is a way to redesign those schools. Providing ongoing professional development for community school staff. Some of that is role-specific, so having community school coordinators have professional development as a group on an ongoing basis. Having the principals get professional development about leading it and, of course, the teachers and others. A third piece is cultivating a positive relationship school climate with attention to social learning and restorative practices has been a really big game changer in a number of places And then instituting data-driven practices, both around attendance, like keeping very careful tabs, but then having a system by which you address the data immediately with a set of community-supported initiatives. And so those are among the things that really matter in the technical assistance. The second thing that we would note is that secondary schools may benefit from specialized supports to take full advantage of community school investments. The LPA study found that within that first cohort of schools, elementary schools and smaller elementary and secondary schools, or secondary schools with small learning communities, had larger improvements in attendance and achievement, signaling particular challenges for large secondary schools that were not able to fully leverage the benefits of the community school investments. And as I mentioned a minute ago, the larger than average gains in Los Angeles were associated with their efforts to redesign middle and high schools by supporting the adoption of the linked learning pathways and the project-based experiential learning and personalized supports and advisory systems and all of that that comes with it. The third point I would make is that integration of services at the local level can lay the groundwork for more coherent implementation of multiple state programs and accountability systems. We found in our case studies that investment in local decision making also built in some of these places site level capacity to engage in things like developing the single plan for student achievement and the local control accountability plan.

The community schools RFA does emphasize that the funding is not to launch programs, but to help coordinate and extend the state district and school initiatives, ranging from the youth-focused behavioral health initiative, nutrition, universal pre-kindergarten, expanded learning, multi-tiered systems of support, social-emotional learning, college and career readiness, school improvement. We have tried to support schools with many, many, many initiatives. And unless they have strategies to integrate those, it feels like a sort of a blizzard of programs. But we have seen in these schools methods to integrate both those programs and the reporting strategies. And I think we should take a lesson and maybe figure out how the state can also help consolidate grant application and reporting processes for these related initiatives. and then ensure that the technical assistance infrastructure is designed to support that coherence and that integration. So that would be like a next stage, I think, in the work. The fourth point is that school networks play an important role in improvement. So I think it very important as the program expands that we continue to require LEAs to organize networks of schools and new schools that opt in to be part of those networks so that they learn with and from each other They have proved critically important to a lot of the advances, the networks of principals and teachers and community school coordinators engage in shared professional development and in problem solving, allows them to learn more productively and more efficiently together. and then also the way that counties and districts can coordinate the resources to arrive in the schools is done more efficiently when they're working with a group of schools around a common approach. We used to have community schools that were tubs on their own bottom, and they had to do everything all themselves. And I think you could see that in the graphs I showed earlier, the modest improvement that that allowed for. And then when we started the, I'm going to use the acronym CCSPP, it dramatically increased. I think it's partly because they were working in these communities. The fifth point is that a statewide interagency working group, such as a children's cabinet, might be worth considering to support community school implementation and link efforts across initiatives. We saw this in the West Kern Consortium. They did that at the county level. And many states have created children's cabinets that work, interagency working groups that formally gather the representatives of different agencies that serve children and families to better align their work, increase service access, and engage in strategic planning. Again, around the theme of coherence that you've taken us as well, we need a variety of ways to help get to that coherence. Could also connect to the services that are supported by promised neighborhoods and a number of communities as well. So I think that's an additional way to think about the future. Finally, because it came up, I'll just add that certification can also play a role in ongoing improvement. We did do a study at LPI at the behest of New Mexico, which is also doing community schools, to look at such systems. Florida and Georgia have had certification processes for community schools. We also looked at the certification process that Link Learning uses for its schools. And we did find that it can stimulate fidelity to the model and also focused forms of learning. And there's some good templates to consider as a starting point for what California would invent as a certification process. So I think we're at a wonderful moment in California. The legislature with the administration has really designed and launched a powerful approach. I think it's more powerful than any of those elsewhere in the country. And it is a wonderful moment to think about how to improve on where we've been and take it further. Thank you.

Welcome. Thank you. Buenos dias, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'm Celia Medina-Owens, president of Pittsburgh Education Association and an elementary teacher. of over 22 years. I started when I was two. My teaching experience includes preschool, dual immersion Spanish kindergarten, second grade, and adult English learners, all of which I have served in Pittsburgh. I'm also a mother of two boys and a proud grandmother of a nine-month-old I currently sit on the California Teachers Association Community School Steering Committee, and I also sit on the Pittsburgh Unified School District Districtwide Steering Committee as a union partner, and I also sit on the Antioch Unified School District District Steering Committee as a parent partner. All 13 schools in Pittsburgh are community schools. Nine schools received grant money from the CCSP program, with other four funded through other means, two of which did have CCSP funding, but we ran out. Pittsburgh schools and students have seen impressive gains in literacy, math, and science assessment scores following adoption of the community schools model. We know that when educators and support staff are empowered to collaborate with school and district leadership, we can focus on the students and their individual needs. And everyone thrives. CTA as a whole is a strong proponent of community schools and strongly supports the governor's proposal to provide an ongoing annual appropriation of $1 billion to the California Community Schools Partnership Program. Community schools goes beyond traditional education models to focus on the whole child by transforming our schools into neighborhood hubs that integrate high-quality curriculum and instruction braided with essential health, social, emotional, and other community services to support students and their families. They foster trust and engagement through meaningful shared decision-making models and the implementation of tailored supports based on a robust local assets and needs assessment. As we shift towards the transformative work of community schools within California, there are three key areas of reform the legislators should prioritize. Number one, meaningful embedded collaborative leadership and shared governance structures into every layer of the community schools infrastructure. Two, strengthening eligibility oversight and accountability measures for all entities receiving community schools funding. Three, improving systems of support to provide implementation guidance and assistance at the site, district, county, and statewide level. Let's start with embedding collaborative leadership and shared governance structures into every layer of the community schools infrastructure. A commitment to shared governance and collaborative leadership cannot just be rhetoric. This is why, as a union leader, we stayed at the bargaining table with our district management team for eight months until we secured a memorandum of understanding that ensured shared leadership and decision-making in the implementation of community schools. Clear language should be added to the trailer bill to ensure that these core principles are embedded into the plan and implementation of community schools and a requirement to receiving funds for this purpose. Similar language already exists in the LCAP, general waiver request, or for individual education programs meetings. The legislator should ensure that schools are truly committed to including students, parents, teachers, and the community in the planning and implementation of a community schools program. This should be a condition for eligibility to receive community schools funding. This brings me to our second priority which is strengthening eligibility oversight and accountability measures for all entities receiving community school funding adding minimum eligibility criteria for receiving funds While increased investments in community school is critical funding alone cannot guarantee program success. I want to say that again. Funding alone cannot guarantee program success and must be paired with clear, enforceable eligibility standards that ensure schools are prepared to implement community schools in accordance with the CS Community Schools Framework adopted by the State Board of Education and implement the program with fidelity. Under the California Community Schools Partnership, receiving funds is conditioned on participating in a competitive grant process administered by the CDE with conditions that receipt of the funds on eligible entities meet eight different priorities. In contrast, this new proposal for community schools only has one requirement for funding schools. That did not go through the existing competitive grant process. Schools must simply be in an LEA with at least 65% EBP. That's it. In addition, of course, to requiring schools to commit to a system of shared governance and collaborative leadership. The legislator should require as a condition to receive these funds, school attests to a commitment to follow the State Board of Education approved California Community Schools framework. The framework now serves as the guiding document to support the implementation of the community schools at the school district, county and state levels. Schools should commit to following this framework as a condition of getting community schools funding. The adopted framework also states there are many models for staffing community schools for success. All of these models include a coordinator who is responsible for the overall implementation of community schools processes, programs, partnerships, and strategies at the school site. The importance of the role of a community school coordinator cannot be understated. For schools with over 151 students enrolled, those sites should be required to staff a community schools coordinator position as a condition of receiving community schools funding. As it relates to oversight and accountability, the current proposal requires the STAC to develop a self-certification process and the accreditation process for what may include up to 6,100 community schools across the state. It's important that the developed process be transparent, inclusive, and properly funded. While we understand the development of these processes can take extensive time and research to create, the current language only states that the CDE has a party to be consulted in the developmental phase. Language should be added to clarify that STAC should work with the CDE and other education interest groups in developing these processes. Additionally, the STAC should present their plans for self-certification and accreditation to the legislator and the state board prior to these going into effect. Lastly, I will speak on improving systems of support and technical assistance structures. The legislator should additionally consider necessary reforms of the systems of support provided through the State Transformational Assistance Center, or STAC, and R-TAC centers. Under the CCSPP in approving an LEA for the role of STAC or RTAC a preference was given to LEAs that commit to partnering with higher education institutions and non community organizations CTA is concerned that this preference was removed in the new proposal for community schools, and we asked the legislator to maintain these existing preferences. Additionally, preference should be given to LEAs that partner with districts doing innovative work at school sites, implementing community schools with fidelity in a way that can be modeled for others. These are sometimes referred to as learning labs. Anaheim has an excellent learning lab. The legislator should additionally clarify the organizational structure of community schools technical assistance entities. While the STAC intended to serve as the lead entity within the statewide systems of support its authority over the REIT TAC is ambiguous at its best. Clear language should be added to clarify the part that part of the STAC's responsibility includes the selection oversight support and evaluation of the R-TACs. This clear organizational structure will help ensure alignment and synergy throughout the community school's technical assistance models at the statewide and regional level. Lastly, embedded collaborative leadership and shared governance at every level of community schools must be included at the R-TAC and S-TAC level. S-TACs and R-TACs should have a steering committee composed of students, parents, teachers, administrators, and community organizations to help guide the work, identify areas of need, and ensure tailored assistance is provided. In closing, community schools are co-created, co-led spaces that reflect the assets and needs of each unique school community, both inside and outside of the classroom. When done right, community schools provide not only opportunities for innovative student learning and success, but also offer opportunities and transformation to entire communities. By pairing sustained funding with clear eligibility standards, strong accountability, and the line support system, the legislator can help ensure that community schools remain transformative spaces that uplift students, families, and entire communities. CTA is committed to the community school movement and will welcome the opportunity to engage with all parties to ensure its continued success. Muchas gracias por su tiempo. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir. Good morning, Chair Alvarez and members of the committee. I'm here today representing the courageous community school team of San Diego Unified. I want to uplift community school site coordinators, educators, staff, students, principals, parents, and community partners across the 35 community schools in San Diego Unified who are implementing this strategy, and I want to honor their impact, vision, and voice in this space. My name is Jason Bavino, and I'm fortunate to have served as our team's senior director since 2022. Our learnings and experiences over the last four years have highlighted several core elements for successful community schools implementation I like to share what those are where we see the governor proposal supporting these core elements and where we see opportunities for adjustments that would ensure we maximize the impact of this historic investment to drive lasting change. Firstly, this transformative work is a process. It takes time. The entry points for all schools vary. The foundation of the strategy is collaborative leadership, and it cannot be assumed that this is an easy endeavor to engage with based on the hierarchical culture that public schools have been associated with for decades. This requires prioritization of trust building and community buy-in that is a critical component of execution, coherence, and sustainability. Secondly, the people leading and facilitating this work are key to its sustained success and require an ongoing investment. There is a reason that having a full-time community school coordinator at each school is a proven practice of this framework. They are the ones aiding the school teams to maximize the existing supports provided on state and local levels in response to their school community's assets and needs. These practitioners uplift objective collective voice, facilitate continuous improvement, and are connectors of all pieces that are required for authentic, sustainable school transformation. Thirdly, we cannot lose sight of the vision of this strategy, which is to create culturally relevant, racially just, innovative learning environments and experiences for our students. Student outcomes are currently moving in the right direction, yes, but for them to improve to the degree we are all seeking, it will require transformative shifts in Tier 1 instruction, which necessitates high-quality professional development and coaching. We cannot emphasize enough that the community school strategy is absolutely about teaching and learning and should be leveraged as a conduit of other state education priorities. As Lincoln High School principal Melissa Agudelo shared at a recent hearing, these core elements are already shifting outcomes for students at our community schools, and I'm happy to provide more details on that in the Q&A. But for now, Chair Alvarez, I'd like to highlight where we see the governor's proposal supporting high-quality implementation and where we see opportunities for greater alignment. With these core elements as our guiding principles, we believe that the governor's proposed shift from one-time grants to ongoing funding is a positive and transformational change. This strategy offers a methodical process that guides schools to be inclusive, collaborative, and innovative learning communities. we aspire for each of our schools. Consequently, this takes time and human infrastructure. Ongoing, reliable funding allows for us to honor a commitment and process without rushing to the next initiative. It provides the stability needed to build trust and buy-in from school communities and retain the essential staff who make this work possible. Community school staffing retention is a vital component of sustaining culture change, partnerships, and continuous improvement. And without the dedicated funding to support the ongoing cost of these positions, we risk regression back to the very norm this strategy is aiming to change. This shift to ongoing funding affirms the state's commitment to the continued success of community schools and recognition of the value this equity strategy brings to our students and communities. However, while we deeply appreciate ongoing funding for all reasons described, we urge the allocation methodology to be reconsidered to prioritize sustainability. The governor's proposal would add nearly 60 new community schools at San Diego Unified more than doubling our current number. In theory, this expansion is exciting, but adequate support at each of those schools is critical for long-term success. Under the governor's proposal, the funding levels at all of our existing schools would be lower than our current grant funding, and more importantly, it would not be adequate to support our core community school staffing at 87% of our community schools. With a deep commitment to teaching and learning, our community school staffing includes a .2 FTE site coach position and a .2 FTE central office resource teacher position at each site who are dedicated to providing project-based and community-based learning, professional development and coaching to build the capacity of educators in our schools. Our educators have committed themselves to shifting their practices to uplift innovation in classrooms that truly reflect the students that they serve. But this learning takes time, takes risk-taking collaboration, and discomfort, all of which are necessary components to transforming teaching and learning. These positions should not be deemed extra, rather as priorities alongside our coordinators. The cost of salary and benefits of these instructional positions, along with a full-time coordinator, is $255,000 a year in 2526. While there are exceptions at the extreme ends of school size in general, our core costs don't scale with the size of the school. For San Diego, unified sustainability is our top priority. Our goal is not more community schools for the sake of increasing volume. It is effective community schools that move student outcomes. We deeply appreciate this historic proposal to expand access to community schools, and we urge this to be done in a way that prioritizes sustainability first and provides adequate funding for long-term success. Finally, with sustainability at the forefront, I'd like to recommend that school and district's commitment to this transformational work is protected and not minimized to a simple opt-in process. Our schools demonstrated collective commitment and readiness prior to being designated a community school by our steering committee, and I'm confident this is a key factor to the success of the system that we have built. Deconstructing current ways of being creates discomfort that has to be thoughtfully and courageously wrestled with by all educational partners. This requires intentionality, effort, and collective buy-in. At San Diego Unified, our community schools process ensures schools have laid this groundwork and are ready to implement before they fully launch.

Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Very well done as well. Now we have Gina Amaro-McMera from Fresno County Superintendent Schools. Welcome.

Chair Alvarez and members thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today My name is Gina Amaro McNamara and I serve as the director of the Central Valley Regional Technical Assistance Center and I get to represent 11 counties which includes Fresno from Kern County up to Stanislaus and Amador counties. I appreciate the committee's attention to this critical issue today. As a key member of the technical assistance structure from day one, I have witnessed impact from the community schools work in the Central Valley and in the state. And what makes this model so unique is that it's about local needs, meeting the needs of our community. And that's why structured county level support for the community schools implementation was the very first part of this investment. $140 million started the work with county offices of education. That was just a little bit more than 3% of the $4.1 billion investment. Those resources went directly to county offices, which currently serve as the hubs of the wheel, developing and maintaining cross-sector partnerships with public health, behavioral health, social services, and community-based organizations to ensure the academic success of our students. This coordination is not incidental. It is foundational to the success of the community schools model. So now I'm going to speak to you a little bit about the regional work. In Fresno County, the work of our community schools coaches begins with relationships, relationships with the other county offices in our region. Coaches engage in regularly scheduled monthly meetings and also convene monthly meetings with all 11 county offices. This is designed to foster collaboration, shared learning, and ongoing connection across the region. In some of the smaller counties, our community school regional coaches support directly at sites because our counties are so small and don't have the capacity to serve their community schools. The coaches also work with other educational experts, activating relationships with mental wellness, expanded learning, finance, early childhood education, CTE and ROP, as well as academic experts. Because the coaches work so closely with the county offices, school districts and sites, they are able to identify bright spots. Bright spots are areas where we see activation of the community school framework coming to life and making learning better for students. This allows for peer-to-peer learning across our region. Just last week, I was speaking to Kingsburg Unified School District, where they shared with me that they went to Madera Unified School District to see community schools implementation happening. In a conversation with a superintendent last month, she shared with me that because of the support provided to her school district by the regional team, she has had a significant decrease in parent issues. Basically, because of the regional support, families are getting what they need and barriers are being removed. The team also leads network improvement communities with four other departments in our county office and some community-based organizations. that community continues to grow with new community schools each year it is coordination that improves outcomes for kids and community this community schools framework not just in talk but in action also I get to sit on our leadership team for AB 2083 where our educational systems come together with government agencies Across the Central Valley we are not only aligning educational systems but also building intentional partnerships with workforce development. Through this work, our regional team has partnered with workforce leaders to develop building better leaders initiatives that strengthen leadership from the boardroom to the classroom. This ensures that our efforts are not isolated to schools, but are connected to the broader economic and community outcomes for students and families. Fresno hosted an All Systems Go event, where 18 county offices were represented. Experts in the field shared their work in how it comes to life in school districts and sites. In the Central Valley, we understand that real impact happens when every arm of the educational system is aligned. and this is what it means to have all systems go. As community school advocates, county offices are thrilled to see the billion-dollar investment to expand and sustain the model. But I want to raise two policy issues for the committees. First, the governor's budget eliminates a county office coordination role in 2031, just as new schools are onboarding. This removes critical resources needed to do complex work of integrating systems of support for students. This is ongoing work with funding needs. While we understand the intent to fold this role into universal and targeted assistance, combining those responsibilities will dilute both efforts. It's true, the mindset of community schools should permeate every department and site of an LEA, but the state is not ready to lose support structures for county coordinators. There is significant risk of fragmentation and impact. Second, community schools eligibility requirements outlined in the governor's proposed budget precludes many small and rural districts from qualifying, thereby eliminating access to transformational program. Equity requires that all students, regardless of where they live, have access and support. Consider Sierra Unified School District in Fresno County, a small rural district, approximately 2,500 students, that does not meet the 65% unduplicated threshold. While Sierra Unified serves students with clear and limited access to health care, mental health services, and community-based supports. To conclude, I am here today because I am a product of a village. We are a product of a village. And I deeply believe in the promise of education and this work. I'm grateful to both the administration and the legislature for their continued commitment to community schools. I respectfully urge you to restore and make permanent funding for COEs, County Offices of Education, Community School Coordinators, and expand eligibility so that all communities can benefit from this transformative program. Thank you for your consideration, and I can speak further during questions and answers around evidence.

I'm Angelica Honko, Deputy Managing Attorney with Public Advocates. I'm honored to be here again before the subcommittee representing thousands of students families and community leaders some here today whose organizations like my own are part of the statewide alliance called the California Partnership for the Future of Learning The California Partnership has been supporting students and families to partner with their schools, districts, and the statewide system of support to advance community schools as places of deep learning, belonging, and joy. In recent weeks, the California Partnership submitted a letter and budget alert to this committee with the support of a broad cross-section of 112 youth and family leadership organizations, community labor and advocacy groups, as well as schools, districts and county offices of education from across the state. All excited that California is poised to deepen and expand the community schools approach for our students. The California Partnership also submitted a joint letter with the California Teachers Association. These are in the materials being provided to you in the colorful folders. No surprise, what we really like about this proposal is the bold, equity-based, $1 billion investment in ongoing funding that school communities and districts can rely on year over year. It will sustain transformation efforts across 2,500 schools and extend this opportunity to thousands more. So yes, I completely agree sufficient ongoing funding is key, but funding isn't enough. That funding must come with guardrails and support for strong implementation in line with California's community schools framework, which was developed through an extensive process of community-driven feedback and guides implementation under the current community schools partnership program. Fidelity to California's exemplary framework is of the utmost importance to school transformation. While it's referenced in the current proposal, we urge you to strengthen the trailer bill in the following ways. First, at a minimum, schools and LEAs should make an upfront, express commitment to implementing the community schools framework in advance of receiving funding. This could look similar to the attestations required to receive CCSPP grants, in particular for the first cohort, which lack time to prepare a community school plan. Likewise, the framework must be the touchstone for robust accountability, whether through certification or accreditation or both. We shouldn't rush development of this process if we are to get it right. Rather, as with the local control funding formula and the development of the community schools framework and RFAs, education interest holders who've been implementing the community school approach and framework must have a seat at the table in giving feedback on processes and criteria related to receiving funding to ensure they're equitable, manageable, and provide the necessary levels of accountability and transparency to the community. Thus, the language should explicitly require partnership with education interest holders, including those at the site level, in developing these criteria and processes. For example, to develop a workable and effective self-certification and accreditation process, significant research and partnership with education interest holders will be required. In addition to collaborating with the department, the trailer bill must instruct the STAC to partner with other education interest holders engaged in community schools. Indeed, the trailer bill should explicitly preference partnership with community at every level of the system, from benchmarking the progress of community schools to selecting STAC and R-TACs who partner with community-based organizations as the current CCSPP does. Next, a coherent continuous community schools improvement process that leverages resources across the community is critical to a successful community schools approach. In the past week, the world has been riveted with the efforts of NASA and Artemis II. For beings approach the moon. For us who are committed to California students, we're in our Artemis II moment. Operating a system of successful schools that launch students towards the future of their dreams is just as important as putting a person on the moon. Just as many engineers, scientists, and mathematicians work together to launch the Artemis II crew into space, families, school staff, communities, and students themselves, many who are here today, need to work together to launch children's learning. An intentional and inclusive community schools planning process is necessary to assemble a school's mission control and set the stage to successfully launch, assess, and complete their shared mission of student success. This team process is at the heart of what ensures community schools are effective for their local communities. It builds leadership capacity and breeds coherent strategy. And the best proof of that will be the students who are going to speak in public comment today, who are part of their community schools process. And they are from high schools and middle school across the state. Yet the current proposal contains no planning or reporting requirements for new schools until after three years of funding. Consistent with the current CCSPP, a stronger approach would require each school to have a shared decision-making team, inclusive of students, families, community partners, and educators. That team should co-develop and co-present annually on the progress of their community school plans to their school communities. In turn, the LEA should draw upon these school reports to present on the progress of community schools overall to the school board and ensure that the plans are posted and available at the district and site level. This reporting should begin at the end of the first year of funding rather than waiting three years. In the first year at a brand new site, this might look like reporting on the outcomes of needs and asset mapping, goals for the next year, and efforts to establish a shared decision-making team. To streamline and minimize the duplication of effort, the state must strive to align such reporting with existing continuous improvement reports like the School Plan for Student Achievement and LCAP, as well as the other whole child initiatives being discussed today. This will require a concerted effort over time in the coming years and is a process where the department, state board, and education interest holders should be engaged. Finally, the capacity building system of support has been key to the success of this strategy. We would strengthen the proposal in the following ways. First, as you've already heard, to make sure the system is up to the massive task of supporting and accrediting more than 6,000 schools, resources must grow to meet the growing need. Second, the STAC and R-TACs should be more integrated and aligned through a hub-and-spoke model, where the STAC serves as a central hub for the R-TACs and county offices of education to build the capacity to provide high-quality support for this transformative approach. And all levels of the system of support should be engaged in communities of practice and evaluated on a regular basis with the input of TA recipients and other education interest holders to ensure they're serving their intended purpose and inform any further restructuring and integration efforts. In addition, we recognize stronger integration and alignment of community schools TA with overall statewide accountability and school improvement efforts is a worthy goal. But the current proposal folds the county coordination support for community schools into universal and targeted assistance without adequate consideration of the runway needed for intentional integration. As a result, it risks losing the specialized expertise that has been developed through county coordination grants and critical alignment with the STAC and RTAC community of practice structure. We strongly support a longer timeline for intentional integrated and aligned capacity building across the statewide system of support including the county offices of education to support a community school approach to continuous school and systems improvement This would mean funding county coordination grants beyond their current expiration date. Across the state, community school mission controls are leveraging the CCSPP funding to launch meaningful changes in student learning and experience. but they're also worried they'll have to abandon their efforts mid-flight. One-time funding forces districts to wind down the coordinators, partnerships, and capacity-building work that drive the success, just as this work is taking off. Already, CCSPP grantees are starting to cut back on promising strategies as they deal with anticipated funding cliffs. On top of that, thousands of students and families across the state are waiting for their school community's turn for liftoff. As you can see from the audience, California students and families are counting on the state to sustain the momentum of California's transformative community schools approach. On behalf of the California Partnership for the Future of Learning, thank you for this opportunity to be in dialogue.

Thank you.

All right, thank you. Thank you all. Really, really well done. Thank you for committing to our request on your presentation you all provided. I don't wanna offend anybody else, but certainly some of the best testimony that I've heard. And I want to give some credit to our consultant who helped structure this this way. She does a great job. Erin does. And certainly the way it was presented in order, but also in the direction given to you and what you presented. Real phenomenal. Very helpful. So, but it's also a lot. So I'm going to try to be very respectful of everybody's time. And I know we have testimony. I am going to make one announcement now that I know for certain because of commitments that myself and Dr. Patel and Mr. Fong have at 12 to be at caucus. We received a message about that. We will not be getting to the fourth item that is before us today, which is universal school meals. And we are likely not to get to item number three, either, differentiated assistance today. We have April 29th as a date that we believe we will be able to do that. So out of respect to everybody who's here for those two items, I wanted to notify you that I definitely don't think we'll get to four, probably won't get to three. We want to get through one and two for sure today. So just for those who are here, thank you. And I apologize for that, but also thank you for your understanding. So with that said, I'm going to try to provide a a summary of the points that you all made and just to sort of set the table. And then I'm going to ask a few questions on a few of these because some of them make a lot of common sense and they build off of the questions during the prior panel. And then others I do think may be worthy of a little bit more conversation. So let me just start. I'm just going to not identify who said it, but I think you'll all recognize it. So technical assistance being critical to the ongoing effort in the proposal, making sure that there's fidelity to that. And some points under that is ongoing professional development, high-quality assistance, data-driven practices with information gathering, and an action that follows that. Second main point, secondary schools, a critical outlier. And so particularly large secondary schools that did not indicate performance at the levels that we'd like to see, and integrating that with redesigning of secondary schools. So this is one that I want to get into. Third, I heard increase in coherence and integration of programs and strategies that already exist. Fourth, school networks being critical and important, because we can learn from each other. Fifth, interagency of children cabinet to make sure that all the work that is being done in California on behalf of children is integrated. Then I heard about shared governance being critical and making sure that that is as it is required in other instances such as the LCAP that that is not just acknowledged but required. strengthening oversight and accountability being very critical with some the current proposal missing some of the requirements of the RFA and the requiring the work of STAC with other groups that's missing as well systems of support are important and we heard about obviously ongoing funding being critical and acknowledging that that is important and making sure that that is correctly identified in terms of the needs, especially in light of current staff that serves as a critical role, not being funded specifically with this proposal. And then making this not so in focusing on sustainability, and then not making this just an opt-in option, but actual fundamentally aligned to the goals of the CCCSP. County office coordination being eliminated really is a problematic here. Eligibility requirements for small and rural. I heard that. I want to acknowledge coming from non-small or rural, that is something that I know we've tried to raise that, elevate that issue here, recognizing that there are many Californians who live in communities like this, so I'd like to learn a little bit more about that. Committing to a framework with fidelity required, or to the framework with fidelity required. Continuous improvement. I want to talk about this as well because it's something that I'm very interested in and not just continuing to fund the program for the sake of it, but how we're ensuring that we are identifying what's working, and what needs to be adapted. The lack of reporting until year three, very specifically, seems to be a concern that I align with. Timeline for integration of some of these changes. And specifically mapping advisory councils and their role and how critical that is to getting this going And lastly where I also want to spend a little bit of time on is the design of accreditation or certification model I hope I did you justice in your tremendous testimony. And if I did not, I definitely ask that you submit to us in writing, because this is something we want to follow up on all these points that I identified in the ones that I did not from your testimony. But again, thank you. Really critical. So let me first start. I'm going to pick just a couple and then turn it over to Dr. Patel. I want to talk a little bit more about secondary schools because you heard that in the questioning earlier. We know what the data has shown. Linda Darling-Hammond from the LPI specifically mentioned this. Others did not. So I want to hear if there's a couple others that have identified certainly from the LEA perspective of what is happening in middle schools. Linda, you talked about the large secondary schools and the positive impact of redesigning secondary schools as a potential merging of those two approaches to potentially ensure that in this next round, we are doing a little bit more when it comes to secondary schools, which might receive this funding. Can I ask you to elaborate just a tiny bit on that, please?

schools that were involved and then also in Oakland we're seeing the same kind of thing. So we do know it's possible and that personalizing, the factory model did not really think that relationships were important. You go along every 45 minutes to another teacher, the teacher may see 180, 200, even 220 students in California as they go behind, you know, in front of them for six periods a day. It's very hard in that setting to then really access the relational sides of community schools and to do the deeper learning.

And middle schools, yeah. And middle schools are a particular challenge in the United States. In fact there one study that shows that in general students do better if they don go to middle school if they go to K or 6 schools because at that developmental moment shifting into sort of the factory model you know structure is particularly challenging and problematic. So middle schools are, you know, a specific adolescent development need as well.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think with middle school as well, I want to point out that we probably don't pay enough attention to it and we need to because that is a huge transition from the way that school is conducted K through five to now middle school where they have all of a sudden different bell schedules and different teachers and just developmentally they're in a space that they're very vulnerable. So I say that because I really want to, you were speaking my language, Linda, in terms of secondary. And I think the way we need to zoom out and simplify the fact that structurally with elementary schools and secondary schools, the student experience is significantly different. We have elementary schools where we have students who are with the same teacher all day. We have teachers who build robust relationships with those students all day over the course of a year, and that goes with parents and caregivers as well. At the high school setting, we have, and Linda touched on this, we have students who are going from period to period, who have multiple teachers within a day, who are shifting what content areas they're learning about, which in elementary school, they're learning about those different content areas, but they're in the framework of one day with one teacher. Why that is important is because I believe at the end of the day, the reason that we're lagging in indicators for secondary is because there hasn't been as much of a focus on the instructional element of the community school strategy. Linda talked about school redesign. That is what it's going to take. And the community school strategy and leaning into it is the answer. It is the way to make it happen. It is a framework and a process that uplifts specifically what needs to be done to elicit the outcomes that we need and that we want from our secondary students. If we focus on redesign, like linked learning, career and technical education, these are the avenues where we can provide those relevant hands-on learning experiences for our secondary students that are certainly going to elicit the outcomes that we are seeking. Right now, it's disconnected. It's simply disconnected. And don get me wrong our high school educators are doing a wonderful job But this allows for coherence and provides a framework for leaders and districts to be able to lean into to say here is what we can do Here's how we can redesign. It's a way. It's a process. And so I want to lean into it, and I want to just double down on school redesign is the way, and the community school strategy is the process that we can help make it happen in secondary schools. Thank you.

I'd like to speak on that, please. We have a needs and assets survey, and that needs and assets survey is already embedded in the grant as part of what we do. And so in Pittsburgh, because we have a robust needs and assets survey under the grant, it gave us the data that we needed to know what our students and our families and our educators at the middle school level needed. And so we have a very robust community school program at the middle school level, specifically speaking in Pittsburgh. We have the change of systems that we're seeing because of the survey. So to answer your question, I believe the survey would, does, and will continue to meet that need. In Antioch, because I said on the district steering committee, we're in the planning stage And we're intentionally targeting just the middle school and the high school, the neighbors, so we could help with the transition and the needs. So to answer shortly, the needs and assets survey. Thank you.

Yeah, and I think, again, at the middle school, as at every level, what's really important is are you doing the work to form that, you know, to understand your local context and get together a team. And what's exciting at the middle school level is the students can start to be involved. In fact, we have a middle school student here from Salinas who's part of her leadership team. And the more you have the students involved, the more you're actually providing solutions that are going to meet their needs. So where my daughter's an eighth grader in Oakland, she's going to a community school. So this gives you a little bit of a longer runway on that where she does have a redesigned school today. She is in a four by four schedule. She has advisory. They're focused on restorative practices. For me as a parent, I knew social emotional learning at that age was really important to me. and the relationship-centered school culture, and that is happening, and that makes the learning and the relationships with the teachers more possible. Also, there's more attention, I think, to the coordination across the feeder patterns too, and you'll hear about those examples like in Anaheim, where then they can be learning and coordinating already around those transitions from elementary into the middle school and from middle into high school. And also, I just want to reemphasize this redesign point and what an opportunity is. We have families here from San Bernardino, and the students have been leading efforts around educator pathways. San Bernardino City did not actually, I think only six of their schools are getting the CCSPP grant. And so they would have a real opportunity to grow that. And the community schools funding would give them the opportunity to have the approach to really think about if we wanted more of these teacher of tomorrow, educator of tomorrow pathways, how would we have the resource to do that? Yeah, it sounds like universally the community schools process is integral, but then there are potentially, in this case, middle schools redesigned supports that could help elevate that and bring it to fruition.

This role is the mortar. It's the mortar to the work, not just the support to the grantees or the new community school people in the county, but it's a mortar to the internal structure of the county office, connecting different initiatives and funding strings to ensure maximum academic achievement for our students. So it is vital as we continue on to have this role in place to do such things as connecting our funding strings. Our divisions in our county offices currently don always talk to one another and yet we trying to serve students And I call it like divorced parents So how do we come together and speak similar language understand listen to our community through the advisory committees and better serve our kids and community? Thank you. Anything to add to that point? Yeah. I'd also like to share, you know, it is a unifying strategy at the County Office of Education level, but what we have seen is when we have the community schools, County Office of Ed coordinators partnering with let's say our expanded learning opportunities program directors that support the regions or the counties, and we show up together to a site and do a site visit or just check in, that is actually doubling down on this idea around coherence. It's actually modeling what we are asking our LEAs and our sites to do. And if we cannot do that at our county office of education levels, that's, you know, it kind of pushes us back a little bit and put folks can point fingers and say, well, you're not doing that. You don't come together. And so we've done this in a way where, you know, President Darling Hammond mentioned a children's cabinet at the state level. My belief is that every county should have a children's cabinet that feeds up to a statewide children's cabinet. And this work of the County Office of Ed Community Schools coordinator has essentially started that work. We are connecting with the ecosystem of care around AB2083, as Gina had mentioned, working around bringing together other county governmental agencies. The first bullet point on that grant award notification for county coordination grant funding is for our county offices of ed to come together and partner with cross-governmental agencies so that we are aligning services for those districts and schools in our counties specifically. And so the better we can do that, right, through something like a mechanism such as AB 2083 system of care or other partnerships, we're better able to sustain and support these services. One thing that we saw, specific Sacramento County, we partnered with Behavioral Health in Sacramento County. They were conducting suicide prevention trainings. We had districts using funding, community schools funding, right, to conduct suicide training prevention, prevention trainings. And so how do we streamline that support? And we have an opportunity at the county office of ed level for that.

Some sort.

So absolutely agree with the continuous improvement. I think for any any personally, professionally, all of these different aspects when we're implementing strategies. One of the concerns is adding on another layer. I think one of the things we realized in supporting community schools implementation, we heard so much from the field around another plan, another reporting requirement. We know we already have the expanded learning opportunities program plan. We already know there's reporting requirements there. we're actually perpetuating this idea of silos and incoherence.

I'm okay with the accreditation process as long as it's done in a very thoughtful way.

It would require some level of accountability, frankly. We need to see student outcome shifts. We need to see that this process is being implemented. It's not a money grab. This is money to help drive strategy implementation. If we do not focus on districts actually implementing the strategy to fidelity, with fidelity, which requires districts to understand what the strategy is, frankly, then we are setting this investment up for failure, frankly.

I'll just piggyback on that. I think that is the goal, right? And to your point, if we were to do an accreditation or certification strategy, it should not be an add-on. So the way one might want to think about it is that there are a set of features in our framework. There might be another set of features that have to do with the redesign components that we want to see. That could become, I don't know if this would work or not, so I'm just, you know, But I've heard from folks at WASC that they'd like to be able to incorporate this kind of work into their accreditation. So it would not be an extra thing beyond what schools currently do. But it would have to be extra. It would have to be defined. And it would have to be those features of the framework and the features of the design. And it would probably need to be done in partnership with the State Technical Assistance Center, which knows the things, right? so that we blend in a common process with the features that are most important. But it interesting to me that we have these Monday morning calls of a lot of people come on and listen And in both the sessions recently on community schools and the sessions on redesigning secondary schools the WASC folks were there saying, we'd like to help. We'd like to engage. So there may be a possibility to integrate rather than laying on.

Yeah, so agree. It needs to be feasible. It needs to be effective. And it needs to be anchored in benchmarks on what really matters. And so the process for developing it, it has to be transparent and it has to include education interest holders, especially those who are really invested in, you know, this community schools process. So that has to be required so that we're actually measuring what matters in it. And then, you know, when we designed the LCFF accountability system, if we're wanting this to be integrated, it went through the State Board of Education. There were public comment opportunities. you know, there were opportunities for people to weigh in. So I think that was more our, as my daughter would say, my 6'7 on it was really because of that. And, you know, and for the California Partnership for the Future of Learning, you know, folks would want to be able to weigh in.

Yes, please. From a teacher perspective, we don't know what the accreditation would look like. However, we do, as you mentioned, to be inclusive of not just the management team, but also the parents, the community members, the students. We would like for it to be transparent, as you mentioned. We need to know what the conversations, what are they, what's happening, and then we need them to be properly funded.

Thank you. Thank you all for being here. I do have several questions, but I know my time is limited, so I'm going to try to stay focused. A couple very technical questions. Looking specifically at the community schools model from the first panel presentation. So those of you who are in the first panel, if you want to give some contributions to responses, that would be appreciated. Specifically, Department of Finance and LAO. when we are looking at the $10 million budgeted towards technical assistance for STAC and R-TAC, given the potential for the increase in the number of schools participating in community schools, is that a calculation, is that a budgeted amount that's based on, you know, what amount of technical assistance was needed for the first 2,000-whatever number of schools, or is this just an amount of money that's available? And so we're saying this is what we're going to put for technical assistance. Is it actually tied into the expected amount of work that is coming our way? And I'm sorry, we're going to do a little musical chairs.

I'm Sade Naira, Department of Finance. So the technical assistance structure amount was taken and tended to mirror similar to the per year allocations, because for the technical assistance structure, it's a three-year contract. And so per year allocation for the tax, it's around $2 to $3 million per year for the contracts currently existing and then the one that starts in the year. out years. So overall, our intention was to mirror similar to what the existing contract looks like right now and to provide a supplemental add-on to what is currently the contract amount that they

The $1 billion apportionment amount is going to receive COLA.

I'll defer to my...

Hi, Jessica Holmes, Department of Finance. So to answer your question, so first off, we're not currently proposing to add COLA to the amounts that we're proposing for the technical assistance funds. So secondly, I think it's also important to note that the initial allocation of technical assistance funding was also to set up. It was not only to help support the 2,500 schools, but it was also to set up the structure. The structure didn't exist prior to this. And so I think there is, it's not exactly an apples to apples, the current funding and the ongoing funding.

Because we're building off something that we already have now. Okay. So it's not an exact mirroring because some of the.

And I think the infrastructure will already be in place and now we're just adding on. And I think the other thing to keep in mind, too, is that, you know, there was a multi-year sort of ramp up. So we just awarded last year the last cohort of implementation grants. So there are some folks who are newly coming on board still, but there are other folks that are further along in the process. So we're building on top of something that's already still moving as well. So I think we recognize that it's, you know, a significant increase in the number of schools that need to be supported. But we also are building off of something that is already kind of up and running. And so we're balancing it. You know, I think if you're asking for, you know, is it perfectly precise and accurate? I think it's our best estimate of where we think it needs to land in order to support this increase in schools. But, you know, it's not an exact science.

We're actually seeing them more in the urban areas. I think we see quite a bit in Southern California, Central Valley. There's a denser, we do like a heat map. There's more community school grantees currently there now. I think with the 65% or above, we, interestingly enough, we probably we won't be able to include rurals at that.

It is true, while the percentage is higher in some, there are rural counties like Riverside that are going to be above 77% of their schools will have access. I'm not seeing Fresno right here, but if we took a look, it'll be a lot of yours. I can speak to the fact that LA County Office of Education currently has about 500. We have 510 grantees, so 11 counties, 510 grantees. LACO has 500, give or take. Their schools will be 1,600 increase. our Central Valley region will be 559 at the 65% and above unduplicated So just an example of the difference And this is getting it to counties that under the CCSPP actually had no grantees They are going to be moving up in the percentage of their schools So what I hearing is that

And I don't know what that looks like, Chair Alvarez, but it sounds like these intervention models, if they continue to be as efficacious as we hope them to be, and that continuity is really important to see that, And the challenges that our students are facing are not going away. They're only increasing. Perhaps we do need to think about a more sustained approach that is integrated within the current funding mechanisms. And then the reporting requirements, the community outreach requirements, would then be folded into the existing LCFF framework. I am just brainstorming here. This is not an actual plan. This is based on what all of you are sharing with me right now for the last two hours. It sounds like it's pointing us in that direction. And maybe this is an opportunity for us to start thinking about, is it time to revisit LCFF? Chair Alvarez, I know you keep talking about that. It's been on your mind for quite a while. So thinking about that as well as we look forward, not just for today's item, but when we think about how we do sustain it and how we do make sure that it's accountable and that there's continued input. I do have a couple questions on the ELOP item. And that is, again, and I think this came up through community schools as well, though. how are we looking at effective funding for ELOP, ACES, the 21st century programs, all of these different programs for middle and high school students? We talked a little bit about middle school students. Certainly there are many reasons why middle school is a really, really challenging environment. It's not just that our children are going through changes in adolescence, but it's also a very short time period to be attached to a school. It's a lot of transition in a very short period of time, steep learning curves and looking at teacher-to-teacher variation. It's supposed to be an opportunity for kids to learn how to change, but instead it's creating barriers and challenges. And so when we look at our systems of support for secondary, how do we integrate ACEs, ELOP, community schools, all of that into a more coherent structure and framework so that we aren't duplicating programs and we're being better aligned and synergistic even? Yeah So in Pittsburgh through our needs and assets assessment certain schools wanted more tutoring that they couldn get during the regular school day And so we partnered through ELOP to provide that support, but not double dipping. So when folks would bring proposals that had like tutoring, well, we kind of connected them. And so we aligned our services to not double-dip and not duplicate them. And then what we did in Pittsburgh and some of our middle schools is some of the funding came from community schools and some came from ELOP as well. And currently our expanded learning is TK6. And just a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be in some legislative offices talking about the opportunity to make that 7 through 12. But we know that there's opportunity to build bridges and open doors. And so one of the things that we're doing in the Fresno area with our network improvement community, which is really about continuous improvement, is working with our expanded learning partners in the county and our content experts, our educational experts during the day, and aligning the practices, not compromising the after-school opportunities, but really aligning the practices. So we do see some of our school districts sharing some of their expanded learning dollars from TK6 with their secondary, but we'd love to see that be part of policy as well. It's very interesting as we think about that continuum. And when we do talk about community schools, we also have to think about when we have feeder schools that have different access to community schools, then rolling into the same middle school or multiple middle schools with different accesses to community schools feeding into the same high school that then may or may not have a community school. Students and families grow accustomed to the levels of support that they receive, and then losing that possibly as they shift from one grade span level to the next can become problematic. And so looking at coherence, I keep looking at you, president of our board, but through your position in LPI also, as we study and look at coherence, my worry is that in developing community schools, we then create a new fractured system as it pertains to how students experience education and the supports that we give them. So it's just something I want to throw out there to think about that as kids grow, and it could even be that your elementary school has a community school, your middle school doesn't, and then your high school does. We have these situations where the UPP numbers float in and out, and then we don't have that continuum. And I would love to see us find a way to bridge that so that as the student experiences school, they can experience it with the similar levels of support as they go through life. Because chances are for that kid, they're not seeing additional comforts in life in middle school than maybe they would have in elementary school. You have thoughts? I mean, I think that's why the framework is so important and the capacity building, because as you're building that skill, we're seeing even in districts where they, you know, some schools didn't get the CCSPP. They've seen how effective the approach is. They're building those skills and strategies. So they're applying it across all their schools. So I think it's still possible that we can really be moving towards a community school state. And this is a huge, we made a huge down payment. This is an investment in expanding, but it will continue to multiply. And I think raising that question is important, but I don't think that it's necessarily a barrier to being able to. Yeah. And I certainly hope it's not a barrier. I hope it's inspiration that that we can continue to work on this and that we make our models transferable and translatable to other districts that may not have the money for release time for their teachers to build these programs or their faculty or their staff, right? Their principals, their administrators. So we need to make sure that they're translatable and transferable to other districts. I think this point about, again, coherence and consistency, one of the reasons it's so important that LEAs are involved in this and have responsibility so that they can think about spreading these practices across their schools, and some are doing that. Others probably need more help to do that. But, you know, the old model of community schools, individual schools, as tubs on their own bottom, did none of that. So I think we want to be thoughtful about what LEAs are expected to do as they are part of this. The other thing is that, you know, of course, we have all these elementary districts, which are separate from our high school districts in California. We have declining enrollment. It's a moment when consolidation encouragements to unify so that we have more coherence are also potentially important. We just did a study of positive outliers for English learners, districts that are positive outliers, and unified districts did much better than others, probably because they had a coherent policy and strategy to support English learners. That's probably true for others as well. I really appreciate that you brought that up because that's also important as we look at budgets. If we do consider unifying schools, I believe Marin County had done a study for their elementary school districts as well as their high school districts, and they found that they could potentially lose funding because they would slip from a concentration-funded district to a non-concentrated, unified LEA. So we would have to think about holding harmless, et cetera, et cetera. As we look at that, we wouldn't want them to then lose a community schools funding stream because we ask them to unify. There's a lot of things to think about all at the same time. Very encouraged by this conversation and your testimony here today. I think there's a lot for us to work on. Chair Alvarez took that long list down. I think we're all excited about the potential we have to continue to strengthen our community schools model. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Patel. And, yeah, we have been talking about LCFF and the coherence conversation, how do some of these investments that have been transformative become part of funding for schools. And so I think this is indicative. You may have stepped up just for a minute, given that we have to be in multiple places this morning, when the LAO raised the issue of this is starting to – you didn't use this word, but I think this is what you were referring to, starting to become a quasi-categorical program. And so where does that fit into LCFF, and where does it fit into the framework that the state board has for what schools should be expected to do? And so I think that conversation is ongoing, and we will continue to have that. I think for purposes of this proposal, what I take away is we have evidence that indicates success, and we have both data and research that is in numbers, but also in testimony that we hear consistently. And whether it at school sites which we all visited or in the halls here at the Capitol So all that to say I think two things phrases that come to mind One which Aaron reminded me you know, we can go slow to go really far, and that's okay, because the goal is to go far. The other one that goes with that, though, in my opinion, is going together also gets us further. And to the point of almost everybody, the collaborative approach of making sure that we integrate students and families and teachers and staff and administrators and everybody our education partners generally that's what's gonna drive the results and so from my standpoint this is a significant investment that should be the cornerstone of that should be those two things and ensuring that we continue as as people use the word fidelity, but certainly the consistency of what we've identified to work. And so I have enumerated all the things I heard from all of you. I am hoping that the administration identified those as well and that we are able to get a response on why some of these components are not in the current proposal. and we will definitely hold this issue open. And if need be, given that we just spent three hours today, probably four hours on the oversight hearing before, obviously it is something that matters a lot to the legislature. I have to say and acknowledge the leadership of the administration, of the governor, and of all the partners to get us to where we are. but it's not, we can't just claim mission accomplished yet. There's work that needs to be done, and replicating and scaling, I should say, always we run the risk of missing some steps, and we don't want to do that. And that's what this hearing is about, and that's what we hope to hear in response to all the items identified by all of the panelists, by the LAO, and additional questions made by this committee. So we hope to hear back on all this come May revise. And again, if we must, we will have an additional hearing on this issue because it's so important. I neglected to say I apologize to the ELOP. It's really never my intent to not stick through the agenda. This is a very significant time, and I will have to close the hearing earlier than expected. So we will not have that item. We'll also push that to the date of the 29th of April. And again, apologies. The point and the main reason is because there's so much testimony on community schools here and want to hear especially from students who have been so intensely listening for the last couple hours. And so we want to hear from their testimony. Again, thank you all. I think the framework, certainly on secondary schools from SBE, is something that remains in my mind. The accreditation, how to do that correctly, remains on top of mind. And then, again, the continuation and the sustainability of the program in a way that's really with the intention that is sought by everyone. Those are sort of the big takeaways. I think everything fits under there. But thank you all and look forward to hearing some feedback on all the things we raised. Thank you to this panel. I'll now ask this if we can ask the students to come forward. I know a lot of you that We I will make sure if I for some reason need to end the hearing because I must go to To the next I want to hear from the students first I gonna ask the students to line up first and then all the other professionals that know how to do this and do this visit us frequently if for some reason and it not the intempidive for some reason I do not get to you today I will promise that we will have an opportunity for public comment on this in the future. So I appreciate that and we'll have that on the 29th. So you have a time certain of when that can happen with that. Typically, we give a minute, ask students, you may have prepared your comments. I'm asking you to please narrow that to 30 seconds. I think I understand you're all going to be here to speak in support. So I get that. But if there's a very specific thing you want to mention, just get to that as soon as you can in your testimony. But begin by introducing yourself, and we'll start with our first speaker. Welcome. Good morning. My name is Haley Sotelo. I had previously prepared a comment, but seeing as we now have 30 seconds, I'll just go through the most important bits. As a student, I see myself reflected in the curriculum that I'm learning through the history I learn and through the services that are provided to me because of community schools. At my school site, which is a community school, and I attend Savannah High School in Anaheim, I have health services that are going on different weekdays and offering students resources, whether that's with dental help or trying to get glasses, which is a resource that I know I've used. and it's important because the core focus is being able to see students as not only the transcript but in the context they live in when communities are doing well so are students and quickly ending I wanted to really emphasize you all are making very important decisions and that is understandable and I'm sure you all have very busy schedules but I would like to invite you all to go to a community school because it's one thing to read about it, but thank you very much. So just to let you all know, that was a minute, 30 seconds go by very fast. And just to let you all know, we had another hearing and we heard about all the things that people like about schools. Today's hearing was about what's the governor proposal. Thank you for your, your comments and appreciate you. So we have a proposal today. Tell us about the proposal and what you see as perhaps needs to be changed in that proposal. If you can get to that, I would appreciate it. Thank you. I'm going to cut you off for 30 seconds, okay? So thank you. That's totally fine. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. My name is Ava Swanson, and I'm here in support of the funding. Just a little bit about me. I'm a student consultant serving on a statewide student advisory board with a bunch of students behind me as well. With this proposal, what I want to say is in my line of work, I hear from students too often that they hate school, and that is something that should never be the norm in our education system. I personally believe that community schools is the future of education. This proposed budget of adding a billion dollars is going to help so many students, families, and communities truly feel connected and supported throughout our state. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Maile Del Cid. I'm a junior in Hawthorne High School with the SSA Board. The primary thing that I would like to speak to you all today is the extracurriculars that community schools brings to so many different schools throughout California that incorporate that hands-on project-based learning that so many were talking about earlier. I know that I've experienced it and I'm just one example of it and it opens up so many doors and opportunities for students to really dip their toes in the water and see what else is out there and I think that's so important for all of us. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well done. Good afternoon. My name is Andrea Motta. I'm a high school junior from Laszter High School in Riverside. I'm just going to get to the main points. At our school, I believe our concerns should be our academics and through community schools, the partnership has become possible for students who are struggling. At our school and many others who are community schools we able to get food housing transportation clothes and other resources with the funds we get These things are sustainable and I think that students find these things so important And if we continue to get the funding, then more schools and more students will be supported. Thank you very much. Good morning. My name is Kenya Naomi Salcedo Nuno. I'm part of the SSA in eighth grade. Primarily, I think community schools really have helped me and I think they're really important. At my school, we have a bunch of resources that help students both academically and mentally and some students don't have that. And community schools are the initial step to create that. So I think community schools are really important. Thank you. Thank you. Well done. Hello, my name is Indra Guerrero and I'm a student at SSA. Community schools are not a side program. They are a proven investment in workforce readiness, economic stability, and long-term growth. When students have access to tutoring, mental health support, and career pathways, they gradually prepare. They enter the workforce with skills, discipline, and direction. Physicians need that. Strong schools build strong employees. In my own experience, support as school changes outcomes when students trust the adults around them. Attendance rises, performance improves, and the goal becomes real. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is Charlie Vaughn-Daily. I'm a high school sophomore and a representative of the statewide student advisory board from Riverside, California. As a black student who finds pride and motivation in my heritage, it's crucial to me that school be a place where I can openly embrace my culture. Just last year, it was reported that when schools adopted the community schools approach, black students experienced more than double the reduction in both suspensions and chronic absences. Funded Community Schools isn't just about better education in the present. It's about equity and helping us all move better futures for ourselves. Thank you. Hello, my name is Frida Sanchez and I'm a youth leader with OCO and the SSA Board. I'm from Anaheim, California and a senior at Anaheim High School. As the Commissioner of Community Schools at my school, I played a key role in our current redesign process, working with staff and students to reimagine what support and opportunity can look like on our campus. I first hand seen how the community schools model has transformed my school a title one campus that is 97% Latino by expanding access to essential resources strengthening relationships and creating spaces where students feel seen and supported because of this work more students are stepping into leadership roles getting involved in their communities and developing a real sense of pride and love from where they came. Thank you very much. Good morning. My name is Coraline Salazar and I'm a student with OCO and SSA from Anaheim, California. And I just wanted to say that community schools has done so much for me to even open a door where I am part of the redesign team at my school. And I have been able to reimagine how my school can better my peers and my school to be better for students. Thank you. Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Alejandra Ramirez-Peralta. I'm a first year student at UC Davis and a student leader with True North Organizing Network representing rural schools. Community schools has helped us reestablish the ELAC, the school side council, and transition from the transition from middle schools to high schools. So I strongly encourage you and urge you to support community school fundings. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Darby Kernan representing In Child Poverty California. We work with the California Promise Neighborhoods and regional place-based initiatives. Every Promise Neighborhood including Chula Vista partners with their community schools. We support the January budget and believe a stronger more formalized partnership between community schools and Promise Neighborhoods could Benefit both. The partnership, Promise Neighborhoods and Regional Place-based initiatives can be powerful partners. Community schools are school-centered. Promise Neighborhoods are neighborhood-centered. Together, they will be strong. Thank you. Good morning. Good afternoon, Chair and members of the committee. My name is Dr. Jamie Parsons, representing the Orange County Department of Education and a statewide coalition of more than 30 other agencies who have submitted a letter of support for ongoing funding for the California MTSS investment. California's investment in community schools represents a strong and necessary strategy to address student needs comprehensively. The question before us is how to ensure those investments deliver measurable sustained outcomes. Community schools define what we aim to provide, which is integrated supports, family engagement, and expanded learning. However, without a coherent implementation framework, these efforts risk remaining fragmented and difficult to evaluate. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Rindy Duvall from Butte County Office of Education in partnership with the Orange County Department of Education for California MTSS. Ten years of implementing California MTSS has given us a great amount of data, including increased student outcomes in ELA and math and significant improvements in chronic absenteeism, specifically in middle and high schools. We have data that shows schools who have been implementing California MTSS and who are in high poverty and rural areas reduce their suspension days significantly. For schools, specifically rural schools, a whole child... You are at time. Sorry. Thank you. Madam Chair, Jeff Frost representing the California School Library Association. We think that both sustainability and planning language in the trailer bill should be expanded to ensure that there are robust libraries that create family engagement. On behalf of the Central Valley Education Coalition, we wanted to make sure that the COE coordinators are funded in the budget. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Brianna Bruns with the California County Superintendents. I'll be brief and want to echo some of the comments that were made today, emphasizing the importance of the COE coordinator role in the success and ongoing success of the program. So we hope that those will continue to be funded in the program rather than being layered into the universal and targeted assistance program. And finally, we encourage the legislature to look at the eligibility requirements to make them more accessible to small and rural areas of the state. you. Good morning, good afternoon, Madam Chair of the other committee. Good to see you today. Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. Pamela Gibbs, representing the Los Angeles County Office of Education. And today we want to urge you to continue to fund community schools with fidelity to make sure that students who are facing lasting impacts of generational inequity and also ongoing disparities are funded. We also urge support for the proposed 65% funding threshold. Thank you very much. The draft trailer bill language. And lastly, to increase the funding for county offices of education. Thank you very much. Just a reminder, everybody can also submit in writing and definitely comes to us, but thank you. We've submitted in writing. Hi, I'm Jessica Gunderson with the California After School Advocacy Alliance. We represent over 43 agencies across the state of California, representing 3,000 school sites. If we're gonna do ongoing funding for community schools, which we strongly support, we're gonna need to have ongoing funding for middle school and high school programs through expanded ELOP and ACES right Like you can have this model without ongoing funding for middle school and high school as well And then there two other pieces in the governor proposal One is you need to integrate all those different plans. You heard that. Two is there needs to be explicit language making expanded learning and community schools at the county level work together. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Dan Morin on behalf of the California School Boards Association. I would just like to uplift LAO's comments and questions around community schools, not undercutting the importance of the program, but that's a vast infusion of ongoing funding, and we've seen pretty historically low COLAs, as well as a withhold of $5.6 billion that could be used for other purposes as well, like continuing this program. Thank you. Thank you. Michelle Warshaw on behalf of the California Teachers Association, as well as on behalf of my colleague from the California Federation of Teachers. We strongly support the $1 billion ongoing funding for community schools. And Celia already did a fantastic job. Just want to emphasize one of her points on meaningfully embedding collaborative leadership and shared governance structures into every layer of the community school structure. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair, Carson needs California Charter Schools Association. The expansion plan for community schools would unfairly exclude non-classmen-based charter schools from the program. 45 NCB schools have already received grants. They're providing community services to 26,000 students. We project 128 NCB schools serving over 76,000 pupils would be eligible for the new thresholds but are going to be denied the opportunity to participate. We understand the language is going to be changed to preserve existing schools' eligibility. We think those 128 schools that would otherwise be eligible should continue to be allowed to apply. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Christina Salazar with the Riverside County Superintendent of Schools. Just want to say we support the ongoing funds and want to keep school services closest to schools and their families. And also want to say thank you, Dr. Patel. To your point, the role of the county coordinators to support LEAs for effective implementation will be critical. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Jalen Woodard. I'm with the Alameda County Office of Education. We support the ongoing $1 billion annual community schools investment, but urge the legislature to make the county office of education or COE coordinator funding permanent and separate from universal and targeted assistance. As such as partners, COEs need this ability to ensure vital community partnerships that meet the needs of their students and families. Thank you. Good morning. Maury Elliott with Gateway Community Charters. We currently receive CCSPP funding for both our seat-based and non-classroom-based schools. In our hybrid non-classroom-based models, hundreds of students receive community school services every day. The current proposal would take that away and not allow ongoing funding. We're requesting that funding stay in place for our most vulnerable students in our non-classroom-based settings. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Julie Crandall. I'm the principal superintendent of Home Tech Charter in Paradise. We are also considered a non-classroom-based school. However, we do have a brick and mortar site. We have students, staff, teachers on campus every single instructional day. And so that excluding non-classroom based schools really does not help our students. In our first year, we increased our academic achievement on all SBAC measures, reduced chronic absenteeism, increased our stability rate, and 98% of our parents report positive school climate. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Luke Anderson. I'm the executive director for prevention at Plaster County Office of Education where I lead community schools and MTSS initiatives I am here to request sustained multi funding for MTSS implementation along with community schools work Through our community schools work I seen firsthand that this work needs an implementation structure to deliver the results that it promises. And I see MTSS as this pathway. Thank you. Thank you. Caitlin Jung on behalf of the San Diego County Office of Education as well as the Small School District Association, I want to align our comments with those from the County Superintendent's association, particularly around the need for permanent funding for the county office coordinator positions outside of the targeted assistance system, as well as looking at the eligibility criteria so it's more inclusive of small and rural districts, including those isolated districts that kind of don't have access to the current proposal. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Good afternoon. Would it be okay if I translate it for after? Buenas tardes. Mi nombre es Nora Barraza. I'm a leader of Sacramento A.D. and the school Luther Burbank High School of Sacramento. The community schools work to strengthen the relationships and leadership of families, students and community. I returned to be leader in my school through community schools. We have power to build strong schools based on relationships and share decisions. We ask that we support the annual investment of $1,000 million for public schools. Muchas gracias. Gracias. I'll keep it brief. I'm Nicole Taylor. I'm the assistant superintendent of SciTech Charter High School. We have a team here today, and they will give you the rest of our spiel. Hello, my name is Terrence Thomas. I'm the community schools engagement coordinator for SciTech Academy South.

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So thank you so much. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else in the public who would like to make a comment? Okay, thank you. Muchas gracias a todos por su contribución hoy. Thank you all for your contributions to the conversation. I appreciate you being really succinct, and you all got your message across. Thank you very much. We will hold this issue open as stated, and we will now adjourn today's meeting. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you.