Community Schools Support

Teachers highlight the value of community schools for powerful learning and high levels of support so students thrive.

Community schools are a whole-child, whole-school equity strategy that, through intentional partnerships, leverage school and community resources so that all students thrive. In 2021, the State of California has made an unprecedented investment in full-service community schools, with $4.1B allocated through the California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP). As of 2024, hundreds of districts have received millions of dollars of funding to transform their school sites into community schools.

As complex and multifaceted initiatives, community schools can be challenging to implement. Successful implementation requires school staff to develop new capacities, cultures, and organizational systems to effectively integrate and align the additional resources and stakeholders required for sustainable change. 

While community schools are not new, they have largely been implemented on a school-by-school basis. The Heartwise Learning team has deep knowledge and experience supporting district-led community school implementation at scale.

Our team has successfully supported over a dozen districts in their community school planning, development, and evaluation. We are proud to offer the following CCSPP supports:

CCSPP Grant-writing Support

Are you considering applying for CCSPP implementation funding? The CCSPP grant-writing process is different from most other grants you’ve applied for: it requires community input and engagement in the proposal planning and design! We can help you facilitate a meaningful and condensed engagement process as part of your grant-writing.  Specifically, we can help you: 

  • Develop an effective district advisory council

  • Facilitate a collaborative visioning process

  • Map community needs and assets

  • Scaffold community engagement & participation

  • Identify potential site candidates for the CCSPP application

  • Support site teams in completing their CCSPP application and planning activities

CCSPP Implementation Coaching

Did you know that historically, most community schools were site- or CBO-led, not district-led? California is on the learning edge of the field by implementing district-led community schools at scale! Which means there is still a lot to learn. Our team can provide thought partnership, coaching, and guidance to help you: 

  • Identify strategic on-ramps and cultivating early successes

  • Avoid common pitfalls and planning for sustainability

  • Build principal knowledge and capacity (e.g. Principal professional development)

  • Support community school managers’ success (e.g. community school manager community of practice)

  • Leverage and strengthening existing partnerships at scale

  • Strengthen data systems for whole child development and continuous improvement

CCSPP Data & Evaluation

Are you implementing community schools at scale across your district? Want support tracking project implementation and outcomes? Do you already have a data-driven culture and want to bring that rigor to your community schools initiative? We can help you:

  • Identify meaningful measures of success and help collect data you need

  • Review data in engaging, community-centered ways

  • Build your team’s comfort and familiarity with data

  • Collaborate with your district data team to prepare data for grant-reporting

  • Distill implementation lessons to inform improvement and scale-up

  • Complete required reporting for CCSPP grant (e.g. APR)

  • Report impact that celebrates successes and increases buy-in

Read our research on community schools

  • The Way We Do School: The Making of Oakland's Full-Service Community School District

    Discover the inspiring journey of Oakland, California, as it embarked on an ambitious mission to revolutionize its education system. Delve into the heart of the nation's most audacious community school initiative and witness the transformation of eighty-six district schools into vibrant community centers, catering to the diverse academic and personal needs of every student.

  • Community Schools: Youth Voices for Equity

    From principals to family members, from community partners to teachers, this book illustrates how together, we all have a part to play in the development of successful community schools. Our chapter on youth voice in community schools is particularly compelling!

  • The District Role in Community School Development

    This brief outlines the specific role districts must play to strengthen system-level supports and infrastructure to ensure sustainable resources, shared governance, robust and usable data systems, and organizational learning and improvement.

  • District Supports for Community Schools: The Case of Oakland Unified School District

    This study examines the district infrastructure that Oakland Unified School District (Oakland Unified) developed to support its community school and whole child education practices. The findings indicate that Oakland Unified provided centralized support for community schools that were critical to sustainable community school success. This brief highlights lessons learned for education leaders looking to build, implement, and sustain high quality community schools in policy and practice.