Liv Ames/ EdSource

Lauren Petry, left, and Imani Williams from Bishop O'Dowd High Schoolhouse volunteered last summer to read to children during a summer plan that is role of the Hayward Unified School District'due south transition to a "community schools" approach.

Liv Ames/ EdSource

Lauren Petry, left, and Imani Williams from Bishop O'Dowd Loftier School volunteered last summer to read to children during a summer program that is role of the Hayward Unified School Commune's transition to a "community schools" approach.

For the past 5 years, the Hayward Unified Schoolhouse Commune has been focusing on its lowest-income neighborhoods, transitioning to a "community schools" approach that provides health, social and other services to students and their families.

The East Bay Area district south of Oakland offers a case study in the potential of an approach whose goal is to transform schools into hubs for the entire community past offering a range of services, such as mental health counseling, health clinics, later-school programs and classes for parents.

Nationwide, about 5,000 customs schools serve ii million students, according to the Coalition for Customs Schools. The concept is "catching on in California," said Deanna Niebuhr, senior director of the Community Schools Initiative of the Partnership for Children & Youth, a nonprofit organization based in Oakland. In response, the partnership launched a statewide network in September to connect community schoolhouse districts to each other and to advocates who work with them.

Now that districts have more flexibility in how they use their resource under the Local Command Funding Formula, "we wanted to seize the moment" to steer the conversation near how to reform education toward customs schools, Niebuhr said. The approach emphasizes building relationships within schools and beyond their walls, she said. That includes edifice a positive schoolhouse climate, creating customs partnerships and engaging with parents.

Children choose a free book to take home. Bernice Patricio says her son Gabriel, right, "checked the calendar every day to see if it was story time in the park."

Liv Ames for EdSource

Children cull a free volume to take home, donated through a community book bulldoze. Bernice Patricio says her son Gabriel, right, "checked the calendar every twenty-four hours to see if it was story time in the park."

Although schools can be the focal bespeak in a customs's endeavor to meet students' needs, districts cannot practice information technology alone. Hayward began its drive to build community schools by seeking support from local governments and nonprofits, and its efforts have met with success. Metropolis police selection up truant students and take them to their schools rather than arrest them. Chabot College offers gratis classes to students and parents. The local nutrient bank delivers food to schools in the lowest-income neighborhoods. Alameda County supports the mental and physical health needs of students at their schools.

The Hayward Public Library helps the district keep children reading during the summertime through a program called "Words for Luncheon." On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the district provides lunch and the library offers a story hr with trained volunteers reading to the children. Afterwards, the children take home a volume, donated through a community book drive.

Stanley Dobbs has spent much of his ii½ years as Hayward'due south superintendent edifice these community relationships. Each year, he holds an educational activity superlative that includes every group in Hayward involved with children, including the city, county, churches, nonprofit agencies, Chabot College and lease and parochial schools.

"I desire to practice whatever it takes to show we're all in this together," Dobbs said.

However, the community schools approach tin be costly. Commune leaders said that despite the support of a broad network of community and authorities organizations, they do not have enough funding to fully implement their vision. For case, turning a classroom into a health clinic that meets all the required specifications costs more $1 million, said Chien Wu-Fernandez, assistant superintendent of student and family unit services for Hayward Unified.

Instead, the district plans to create full-service customs schools in its highest-poverty neighborhoods, offer cardinal services in all schools, and turn a one-time elementary school into a central hub that will provide a full range of services. Hayward Unified educates more than 22,500 students, near three-quarters of whom come up from low-income families.

"We're taking the community schools framework and using it every bit a way to kickoff to organize our system, rather than merely get services in," Wu-Fernandez said. "Nosotros're edifice services based on data and where we see the gaps."

For case, some schools are closer to grocery stores and clinics, she said, while in other neighborhoods information technology's harder for families to get nutritious food and health care.

One of Hayward'due south neediest neighborhoods surrounds Cherryland Elementary, which is closest to the commune's platonic of a customs school, Wu-Fernandez said. At Cherryland, 85 pct of the children come from low-income families and more than half are English learners.

"We figure out what the needs in our community are – students first and then families," said Cherryland Primary Itoco Garcia. "Then we do what we can in our power to meet those needs. We try to requite our students a take a chance."

Principal Itoco Garcia is well-versed in the community school approach, noting that it is based on the theory of a "hierarchy of needs," developed in the late 1940s by psychologist Abraham Maslow. Simply when students' basic needs are taken intendance of – whether it'due south a toothache or stress in the family – can they focus on academics.

"Nosotros effigy out what the needs in our community are – students offset and so families," Garcia said. "And then we do what we can in our power to run into those needs. We effort to give our students a gamble."

In the fall, staff from a county-funded dental dispensary come up to Cherryland to offering students free screenings, fluoride treatments, sealants and referrals for other dental work.

Gabriel Patricio, 6, enjoys manipulating the puppet during the Words for Lunch summer program in Hayward parks. XXX and XXX use puppets to engage the children in the reading circle.

Liv Ames for EdSource

Gabriel Patricio, 6, enjoys manipulating the boob during the Words for Lunch summer program in Hayward parks supported by the city and the school commune.

In the bound, the schoolhouse holds a health off-white for families, which includes a mobile "vision van" with optometrists who test optics and can provide gratis glasses the same mean solar day.

Garcia said caring for the whole family unit is another way to have care of kids. "Grandma needs glasses so she tin can help with the homework," he said.

One large classroom at Cherryland is set bated for gratuitous Parent University classes based on what parents demand and request, such equally English every bit a 2d Language, GED preparation and Zumba. And a mobile nutrient pantry provided past the Alameda County Community Food Depository financial institution comes by the school one time a month.

Cherryland was the kickoff school in the commune to implement Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, a data-driven disciplinary system that relies on positive reinforcement.

"PBIS transforms the relationship between adults and students in a school," Garcia said. "We removed 'end,' 'no' and 'don't' from school rules." The school likewise offers parenting workshops so parents can employ the PBIS principles at home.

Parent Angelica Chanchola said that the parenting workshop helped her use a more than positive approach in disciplining her children, talking calmly with them rather than getting upset and raising her vocalization if they disobeyed her.

"I learned that certain words can affect a child's development," she said. "I learned to say 'consequences' instead of 'punishments.'"

Each calendar month a urban center bookmobile offers books that children tin borrow, and speakers come to the schoolhouse to discuss relevant issues with parents, such as representatives from the Alameda County Sheriff's role who came to talk about domestic violence and disaster preparedness.

Cherryland has one half-fourth dimension and three full-time mental health counselors funded past the county and a function-fourth dimension speech therapist, psychologist and nurse. The school has an after-school program, whose staff works closely with teachers.

"Aught is a satellite programme," Garcia said. "Everything is integrated into the fabric of the school culture."

What helps make it piece of work, he said, is a combination of strong customs partners and local command of district funds, called site-based funding. A school commission representing teachers, other staff, administrators and parents decides how to spend the funds the district allocates to the schoolhouse.

Site-based determination-making "gives this community a sense of identify, purpose, power," Garcia said.

The community schools model also involves concrete school design, such equally intimate rooms for counseling and large rooms for community meetings and clinics. Ane gene limiting Cherryland'due south final transition to a community school is infinite. Built in 1948 for 500 students, the school now serves almost 800 students and relies heavily on portable buildings.

But Cherryland is going to be rebuilt with schoolhouse bail funds approved by Hayward voters in Nov 2014. Schoolhouse leaders are hosting public meetings to find out what community members think their new school should look like.

Although not all of Hayward's schools offer everything available at Cherryland, all schools take after-school programs and most schools are implementing positive discipline practices and take mental health counselors. Chabot College offers on-site, for-credit classes at all eye and high schools, and the county provides alcohol and drug counseling at most all of the secondary schools.

The county staffs a mobile health van at Hayward High 3 days a week, and the nutrient bank provides food once a month to schools in the lowest-income neighborhoods.

This past spring, the district also opened a centrally located hub at a former elementary school that offers gratis Parent University classes, including some for customs college credit. Parents tin also annals their children for school, preschool and after-school programs at the hub. It hosts customs meetings, and the city may open a branch library there.

The food banking company comes to the hub, and the district plans to send the mobile health van to the hub next summer to handle immunizations and physical exams when parents annals their children for schoolhouse. If funding can be found, the district would like to have the van visit the hub two days each week during the school yr.

Niebuhr says mobile wellness vans work well. "It'southward not a discounted model to accept a van come once a week," she said. The "bigger work," she said, is doing business differently: engaging families, building a positive school climate and working to continually amend.

"Information technology'due south not 'these poor kids need services' and that's the end of the story," Niebuhr said. "But does every family have a proficient relationship with their children's teachers, and do teachers have the capacity to make that connection with families? That will bulldoze educatee achievement."

The customs schools framework is "a blend of services, appointment and good core teaching," Wu-Fernandez said "It is also a lens through which nosotros do the work."

To get more reports like this ane, click here to sign up for EdSource's no-cost daily email on latest developments in didactics.