Skip to content
United Teachers of Los Angeles logo

Community Schools

Community School Interest Form

Fill Out This Form

Join the Growing Movement to Invest in Public Schools 

Reclaim Our Schools Los Angeles (ROSLA) and the UTLA 2019 Educators Strike were crucial in winning an agreement with LAUSD to fund the first 30 Community Schools based on the NEA best practices model.

Parent, youth, community, and labor leaders are committed to addressing historically underfunded schools with predominantly Black and Brown students.  We now have 34 Community Schools, which are showing impressive results – and we now have the opportunity to add even more schools to the initiative.

Four Pillars

Reclaim Our Schools Los Angeles (ROSLA) and the UTLA 2019 Educators Strike were crucial in winning an agreement with LAUSD to fund the first 30 Community Schools based on the NEA best practices model.

Parent, youth, community, and labor leaders are committed to addressing historically underfunded schools with predominantly Black and Brown students.  We now have 34 Community Schools, which are showing impressive results – and we now have the opportunity to add even more schools to the initiative.

What does a Community School get in LAUSD?

  • Strengthens a school’s ability to fight against co-location and reconstitution 
  • Strengthened ability to organize against co-location
  • Additional funds ($150,000 during the 1st year & $250,000 during the 2nd year to pay for full time CSC and more), with the strong likelihood of more funding thereafter 
  •  Expanded Local School Leadership Council (LSLC) authority

Community Schools Success Stories 

In 2001, Cincinnati turned all of their schools into Community Schools. They were the lowest performing district in Ohio and had an achievement gap between Black and white students of 14.5%. Today Cincinnati is the highest performing urban school district in Ohio and the achievement gaps is only 4.5%. 

In 2010, two schools located in Austin’s most high-poverty neighborhood went from the brink of closure and lowest performing to becoming two of the highest performing Title 1 schools in their city. 

In the 1990s Kentucky converted almost all of their schools into Community Schools. Kentucky went from being consistently ranked one of the worst in education in the nation to outperforming half of all states and reducing their socio-economic achievement gap to the smallest in the nation. 

What will the first year as a Community School in LAUSD look like? 

  • The Community School hires a Community School Coordinator who guides the school community through a visioning and transformation process. 
  • The Coordinator leads a deep assets and needs assessment process that engages 75-100% of parents, students, staff, and community to identify the school community’s top priorities. 
  • The Coordinator and LSLC help identify stakeholder leaders to form problem solving teams that will explore changes to get closer to the schools’ vision. 
  • The data collected from the deep assets and needs assessment process will help the Coordinator form partnerships with community groups, public agencies, and businesses to support your school in year 2. 

We are reimagining school! View the Community Schools presentation:

Contact

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out to:
Esperanza Martinez, UTLA Community Schools Coach at 213-440-0977 or emartinez@utla.net or Cora Watkins, Division of Instruction at cwatkins@lausd.net

UTLA Community Schools Coach