“The California Community Schools Partnership Program supports schools efforts to partner with community agencies and local government to align community resources to improve student outcomes. California’s state government invested a historic $3 billion dollars into the California Community Schools Partnership Program with the aim of transforming schools into community hubs that deliver a whole child education.
The approach is more than just a monetary investment. UCLA is involved and have created the UCLA Center for Community Schooling. The director, Karen Hunter-Quartz led an effort to start the UCLA community school – a school that features bilingual programs in both Spanish and Korean, mirroring the languages most students speak at home in Koreatown – where the school is located. There is an on campus immigration law clinic which represents students and parents seeking visas, or asylum. Hunter-Quartz described the concept of community schools in a question “how can we design schools differently to promote these small, nurturing communities?’ Her vision of the community schools that were to come were schools that embodied the four pillars of community schools.”
Listen to the podcast episode here.