Community Schools in Lynwood Unified: Building Capacity for Districtwide Implementation

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, students’ rising mental health needs, chronic absence, academic challenges, and struggles to reengage with school have spurred interest in whole child education and pushed practitioners and policymakers alike to reimagine what school can look like. Community schools are a strategy designed to address these issues, focused on simultaneously improving student well-being and expanding educational experiences and outcomes. Across the country, major investments in community schools are driving interest in how increased access to funding and the expansion of the strategy are affecting students and families. This is especially true in California, which has committed $4.1 billion to support the strategy in nearly 2,500 schools across the state. Through this funding, the California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP) grants have helped spur the scaling of community schools in districts throughout California, necessitating the hiring and development of community school–specific personnel, namely community school coordinators.

Community schools are an evidence-based school transformation strategy that unites the efforts of students, families, educators, and community partners to improve student learning and well-being. Part of what makes community schools unique is the community school coordinator, a school-based staff member not traditionally found in schools, who is charged with organizing access to a range of public and private resources tailored to student and family needs and weaving them into the fabric and daily operations of the school. They also are the connector or bridge between the school, community-based partners, and families. The distinct roles and responsibilities of a coordinator require a specific set of skills and opportunities for capacity building and professional learning targeted to their needs. Thus far, we know very little about the hiring process for coordinators; the skills and dispositions needed to do the job well; and the supportive infrastructure provided to them at the district, county, and state levels.

Practitioners, policymakers, and community members alike seek guidance on how to use the increased resources to develop high-quality community schools that are responsive to community needs and assets. However, studies on the structures, processes, and practices that enable quality scaling and implementation of the community schools strategy are few. Even less common are studies of community school coordinators and the structures, policies, and supports that aid them as shepherds of implementation. This report elevates findings from a rapidly scaled community schools district that prioritized defining the role of the coordinator and developing their capacity to be collaborative leaders and the drivers of community school implementation.

Lynwood’s Community Schools Initiative

Located in southern Los Angeles County, Lynwood Unified School District (Lynwood) sits within a 4- by 4-mile area, filled with a tight-knit community of families who have lived there for generations and newcomers from other countries. Many district administrators, principals, teachers, and staff attended Lynwood schools themselves, while others have worked in the district for their whole careers. This deep-seated connectedness and sense of community helped usher the district’s commitment to community schools as an equitable school improvement strategy.

Lynwood serves 10,900 students across 17 schools (3 high schools, 2 middle schools, and 12 elementary schools). Most students identify as Hispanic or Latino/a and come from low-income households. In 2024, the district received more than $24 million in CCSPP grant funds to expand beyond its pilot community school, Lynwood High School, established in 2019. Lynwood leveraged this funding to turn all remaining 16 schools into community schools, helping the district to advance its vision of equity and whole child support at the urgent pace demanded by the needs of students and families.

The district built upon existing strengths around integrated student supports, namely its health collaborative of more than 45 physical and mental health partners, and a commitment to social and emotional learning. While the existing infrastructure and initiatives gave Lynwood a firm foundation from which to grow, scaling community schools districtwide required leaders to be laser-focused on staffing and designing a system to support rapid implementation. Lynwood was able to accomplish this by focusing its energy on building its community school coordinators’ capacity to drive implementation and align efforts around the highest-need areas across the district and within its unique school communities.

The care and intentionality of Lynwood’s approach to implementation and professional learning for coordinators has, even in 2 years, yielded impressive results for students and families. They have seen rates of chronic absence decline by one third, student achievement grow in English language arts and math in nearly every school since implementation began in 2023, suspensions decline by 15.5%, improvements in school climate and culture, and increasing family and community engagement.

Findings

We found that Lynwood enabled successful scaling and implementation of its community schools by doing the following:

• Conducting a Holistic Districtwide Analysis. Conducting an analysis of what was being provided and what was still needed drove use of funds and enabled community school coordinators to do the critical work of accessing and integrating tailored services and opportunities for students and families. Lynwood leadership used a combination of referral data tied to the district’s health collaborative, climate surveys, and administrative data to pinpoint high areas of need among their students and gaps in existing resources, staffing, and partnerships. Lynwood expanded the partners in its health collaborative and increased point-of-access services on individual campuses to meet the growing health and mental health needs of students and families.
   
• Communicating a Clear and Consistent, Data-Centered Vision. This vision created coherence around community school implementation across each campus. From that vision, coordinators were able to strengthen and integrate an existing infrastructure of services ranging from health and social work to attendance supports, supports for social and emotional learning and restorative practices, and crisis intervention. Lynwood used CCSPP funds to hire personnel to bolster and facilitate these services. The wraparound services team consists of the grant-funded community school coordinator and a certified student support analyst, along with a social and emotional learning specialist, a licensed clinical social worker, and a community liaison. The Student Services team educated coordinators on existing systems, initiatives, and resources within the district and in the community and helped them identify gaps to be filled at the system and campus levels.
   
• Developing Role Clarity for the Community School Coordinator. Clearly defining the skills, responsibilities, disposition, and position classification for the community school coordinator helped ensure the right people were hired and enabled a smooth onboarding process. Lynwood sought coordinators who had commitment to community; familiarity with existing resources; and the ability to form strong, positive relationships. The job description and designation as classified management emphasized that coordinators were leaders on campus who were expected to collaborate with the principal, other members of the leadership team, families, and community partners.
   
• Building the Capacity of Community School Coordinators. To help coordinators grow into their roles, Lynwood offered a well-structured, weekly professional learning community (PLC), personalized coaching, and collective problem-solving. Lynwood also created a system-level position (district community school coordinator) focused on providing professional development, coaching, and facilitating implementation across the district. The PLCs helped establish consistent goals, routines, and practices for all coordinators to draw from when leading implementation at their campuses. Coordinators were also provided specific and targeted training on conducting assets and needs assessments to give them tools to effectively identify, access, and integrate needed resources, partnerships, and services into their schools.
   
• Encouraging Coordinators to Engage in Outside Professional Development. Community school coordinators had frequent opportunities to take advantage of professional development opportunities, especially those provided by the Los Angeles County Office of Education, the Regional Technical Assistance Center, and the State Transformational Assistance Center for Community Schools. In Lynwood, coordinators attended and found useful the county and state technical assistance and professional development offerings, pointing to the value of California’s investment in building a spoke-and-wheel model of technical assistance.
   
• Investing in Coordinators’ Long-Term Growth and Well-Being. Lynwood was able to sustain the work of coordinators by developing a strong community of collaboration and offering ongoing capacity building in high-leverage skills. Coordinators forged a strong community among themselves, which served as both a safety net and support, and a space for creative collaboration and collective impact. Through their communal and collaborative orientation, one person’s strength became the whole group’s asset. Lynwood is investing in growing the leadership skills of coordinators over time, particularly focusing on how to be a collaborative leader who facilitates shared decision-making and leads through influence.

Lessons

Lynwood went all in on community schools and faced a difficult task of scaling quickly, across the district, without time or funds for planning. By focusing on developing the coordinators, who are the ambassadors of the strategy—in an intentional, coherent, and consistent way—the district has been able to make great strides in implementation over the course of 2 years with positive student, family, and community outcomes. Key lessons from Lynwood that can inform other districts’ efforts to implement community schools include the following:

• Take Stock of Existing Infrastructure, Services, and Opportunities Paired With an Analysis of High Needs. This allows for intentional and targeted scaling. Implementing community schools can happen more effectively when the strategy is presented as a means to augment and strengthen existing services and programming grounded in shared vision and goals.
   
• Clearly Define the Skills, Responsibilities, and Position Classification. Doing this for the community school coordinator aids in designing a hiring process to bring on the right people and enable a smoother onboarding process.
   
• Design Ongoing Professional Development Opportunities. Opportunities like a weekly PLC structure grounded in learning and shared experiences are an effective way to build the capacity of community school coordinators. In Lynwood, the PLC helped coordinators align around a common set of goals, routines, and practices while building skills to make tailored decisions on their own campuses. Within the PLC structure and through personalized coaching, coordinators were able to workshop and troubleshoot with one another, improving upon their work as each school year progressed.
   
• Train Coordinators in Conducting Assets and Needs Assessments. Community school coordinators help the broader school community organize around a shared vision and goals. To do this effectively, they need to learn and practice the varied skills needed for a comprehensive process, including piloting a listening campaign, learning about all of the available administrative data sources and how to pull data from them, practicing and facilitating data analysis, writing and administering surveys, presenting findings, and crafting priorities and action steps.
   
• Provide Access to Professional Development Opportunities. Opportunities beyond the PLC structure can help coordinators tailor learning unique to their strengths and areas for growth. Encouraging and assisting coordinators in accessing these opportunities allows them to take ownership of their development. These opportunities are easier to provide when county and state supportive infrastructure and technical assistance exist.
   
• Cultivate a Supportive Community of Coordinators. Doing this helps them forge on with the work and stick with the role. New community school coordinators are often stepping into a role that previously did not exist and is singular on a campus, which can be difficult and lonely. When coordinators form bonds and trusting relationships, they can lean on one another for both support and to deepen their work, and they are more likely to stay year after year.
   
• Develop the Disposition and Skills Needed to Be an Effective and Collaborative Leader. This is a long process that takes ongoing, targeted learning focused on building leadership capacity. Community school coordinators are leaders who harness the ideas and strengths of others to build a collective set of priorities, goals, and actions. To be a community-oriented, transformational leader, they can only move at the speed of their collaborators. Learning how to bring these partners along is an ongoing process that is central to quality implementation of community schools.

Community Schools in Lynwood Unified: Building Capacity for Districtwide Implementation by Emily Germain, Sarah Klevan, and Daniel Espinoza is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

This research was supported by the Stuart Foundation. Core operating support for LPI is provided by the Heising-Simons Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Raikes Foundation, Sandler Foundation, Skyline Foundation, and MacKenzie Scott. We are grateful to them for their generous support. The ideas voiced here are those of the authors and not those of our funders.

Cover photo provided by Lynwood Unified School District.