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Infrastructure at Oakland Unified School District helped to successfully implement a community schools approach by centralizing processes and systems and providing support for family engagement and professional learning and development.
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Examining how Oakland Unified School District successfully implemented a community schools approach, researchers found structures that support effective partnerships, Coordination of Services Teams, community school managers, professional learning and development, and family engagement.
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Oakland Unified School District's long-standing community schools initiative offers lessons for districts implementing a community schools strategy, illustrating an approach focused on integrating whole child educational practices and providing sustained support through centralized district infrastructure.
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High-quality civics education supports students to be informed, active, and engaged citizens throughout their lives. In the face of declining civics knowledge in America, a growing number of states are implementing policies that support a new approach to civics education that engages students in inquiry, reasoning, and action.
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Parents, teachers, and researchers agree: Students need social and emotional skills to reach their full potential. Students may face hardships that impede their ability to learn, such as discrimination, housing insecurity, and school safety. Schools can enact polices that support whole child development to help their students’ through difficult times.
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Findings from hundreds of studies indicate that evidence-based SEL programs improve students’ social, emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes at all grade levels and for all students. To successfully implement SEL, schools and educators need support by state and district infrastructures that advance whole child development.
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Social and emotional learning (SEL) programs are a low-cost, evidence-based educational intervention that improves outcomes for all students at all grade levels. As SEL programming grows across schools and districts, research points to policies and infrastructures that teachers, principals, and policymakers can adopt to support successful implementation.
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Across the nation, many are marking the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic that has kept us apart for the past 2.5 years. But in education, it’s clear we can’t return to the old normal.
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Early data suggest chronic absence has doubled nationwide. Sixteen million students—or one out of every three—are now missing so much school that they are at risk academically. Fortunately, research and experience offer effective strategies for addressing chronic absences.
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The increased stress, mental health challenges, and inequities observed during the pandemic have reaffirmed the need to create safe, welcoming learning environments for students and educators. Well-designed teacher preparation for a whole-child approach is an important step toward meeting students’ needs and can overcome major hurdles such as teacher shortages.
