Teaching and Learning in Community Schools: Collective Problem-Solving in Los Angeles

​

Nivia Alvarado, Rosa Jimenez, Darlene Tieu, Roberto Vega, Lorenza Yarnes

Los Angeles Unified School District

UCLA Consortium for Community Schools

​

Marisa Saunders

UCLA Center for Community Schooling

​

June 22, 2020

Join the conversation at #RiseUpForEquity

Welcome and Agenda

1. Introductions
2. Community Schooling in Los Angeles Unified School District
3. Opportunities for Change in Los Angeles
1. Building Community
2. Empowering Community
4. Closing Reflections

A history

of community schooling

in

Los Angeles

Introductions: Who we are

UCLA CONSORTIUM OF COMMUNITY SCHOOLS

Introductions: Who we are

Marisa Saunders

Associate Director for Research

UCLA Center for Community Schooling

​

Nivia Alvarado, Rosa Jimenez, Darlene Tieu, Roberto Vega, Lorenza Yarnes

Teacher Research Fellows

Los Angeles Unified School District

Community Schools

​

Introductions: What we do

1. Acknowledge the history of community schools in Los Angeles Unified School District

​

• Document and elevate local community-based practices that are core to the work of community schools to strengthen student outcomes, families, neighborhoods and community

​

• Lift teacher voice and leadership

​

• Contribute to and strengthen the community school movement

Introductions: Our work

• You’ll hear from each Teacher Research Fellow who will provide a brief overview of their work at their respective community school

​

• We will then break into smaller groups to facilitate learning and discussion.

• We will come together to reflect

Darlene Tieu

Mann UCLA

Community School

Mann UCLA Community School

• 1926: opened as Horace Mann Middle School
• 1940’s: students are bussed from surrounding neighborhoods to go to Mann
• 1960’s-70’s: Suburbanization shifted the school’s population from White to Black
• 1980’s-1990’s: school population fluctuates, at its peak the campus housed 2000 students
• 1990s-2000’s: LA Riots affect South LA’s reputation
• 2000’s-present: enrollment declines as public schools compete with charter schools
• 2016: UCLA partners with Mann
• 2021: First Graduating Senior Class of Mann

Lorenza Yarnes

Leo Politi Elementary

The Leo Politi Community

​

• Established 1991 in the Pico Union area, 1 mile west of Downtown Los Angeles
• ­History of strong family/community/school ties
• Community Connections
• ­Teacher as Collaborative Leaders
• Trust
• Commitment to-Leo Politi
• Teacher Satisfaction ­
• Classroom Community - Small Group Math

Nivia Alvarado

Humanitas Academy of

Art & Technology at

Esteban E. Torres

Rosa Jimenez

UCLA Community School

Roberto Vega

Social Justice Humanitas Academy

A Brief History.

Started as an SLC at Sylmar H.S. in 2000.

Awarded as a Pilot School in 2010 (moved to CCLA).

Primary focus is a teacher-led model that is student-centered.

• Restorative Justice
• Relevant pedagogy
• Resiliency through empathy (In Lak'ech)

​

Building Community

We rise up for equity by building safe, nurturing environments that support students and educators

1. Darlene Tieu, Mann UCLA Community School
2. Lorenza Yarnes, Leo Politi Elementary School
3. Nivia Alvarado, Humanitas Academy of Art and Technology

Darlene Tieu,

Mann UCLA Community School

The Community School

Faculty

Support Staff

Admin

Families

Community Members

Local University

Students

Teacher’s Union

The Community School

Teacher’s Union

Faculty

Support Staff

Admin

Families

Community Members

Local University

Students

Before COVID-19

• All stakeholders had a strong commitment to responding to the needs of our students and local community
• Trusting relationships and avenues of communication opened to ensure that the school was serving the community and not the other way around.

My 10th grade students participating in our weekly community circle during Advisory.

Before COVID-19

• Students & Teachers: Familial environment created both inside and outside of the classroom.
• Teachers & Admin: Autonomy within school-wide expectations
• Community & School: coordinated efforts to leverage each other’s assets to best serve students

Mann UCLA teachers at our students’ basketball game. Go Panthers!

The Community School model has allowed me to…

• teach high school chemistry through a climate change lens that centers the surrounding community to ensure what students are learning is relevant and important to them.
• politicize and critically analyze the causes and effects of climate change in our community.
• connect with university researchers to build my practice.
• collaborate with colleagues to create interdisciplinary curriculum.
• build a familial community that allows us to truly get to know our students.

In response to COVID-19….

....everybody got creative.

​

• Students:
• resilient and adaptive when their classrooms, routines, and social circles were suddenly transformed
• Faculty: came together as a team to leverage each other’s assets for creative problem solving and outreach.
• Social Media: Website, Schoology, and Teacher Instagrams
• Brought community resources to students and their families
• fundraised on a small scale to send out care packages of school/household supplies to students
• communicated constantly by coordinating with each other to ensure no students fell through the cracks
• Administration Team:
• trusted the faculty when it came to curricular decisions
• shared best practices from within the school to the entire faculty
• coordinated whole school response -- laptop distribution, communications to families
• established school wide expectations to maintain quality of instruction
• Support Staff:
• communicated with families
• worked with teachers to support them through shift to distance learning

• Family Members:
• trusted the school, knew the school was a community center
• Community Members:
• local law office held a legal workshop to inform families of tenant rights
• food banks opened
• community volunteered at district food distribution centers
• Local University:
• supported teachers through a large scale fundraiser to send out care packages of school/household supplies to every student
• compiled lists of local resources that centered around our school

​

In response to COVID-19….

....everybody got creative.

Our partners at UCLA compiled a list of resources closest to our campus for our students’ families.

Our school website was also constantly updated with resources for our families to spread the word about Pandemic-EBT, Tenant Protections, access to Internet, and more.

In response to COVID-19….

....everybody got creative.

​

In response to COVID-19….

....everybody got creative.

​

In response to COVID-19….

....everybody got creative.

​

Our math teacher continuing to engage students using Instagram.

In response to COVID-19….

....everybody got creative.

​

In response to COVID-19….

....everybody got creative.

​

$1000 from Donors Choose awarded to a teacher to send care packages to her students inspired a grassroots effort where our university partner helped us raise $40,000+ to send care packages to every student at school.

Most requested items:

• Grocery Store Gift Cards
• Pencils
• Lined Paper
• Laundry Detergent
• Soap
• Shampoo
• Headphones

In response to COVID-19….

....everybody got creative.

​

• All stakeholders had a strong commitment to responding to the needs of our students and local community
• Trusting relationships and avenues of communication opened to ensure that the school was serving the community and not the other way around.

​

• Students & Teachers: Familial environment created both inside and outside of the classroom.
• Teachers & Admin: Autonomy within school-wide expectations
• Community & School: coordinated efforts to leverage each other’s assets to best serve students

Lorenza Yarnes,

Leo Politi Elementary

Leo Politi Elementary:

Pre-Covid - Peer to Peer Math Groups

• Problem
• Students were struggling with math.
• Solution: Peer to Peer Math Groups
• 3 Group Rotations – 1 independent/problem solving, 1 group games, 1 teacher led
• Results
• On an end of year survey One student said that the thing she liked best about my class was math groups because they could learn from each other

​

During Covid-

How did Leo Politi maintain community?

Practices that helped maintain community

• Teachers
• Group me Network
• Strong Grade Level Teams
• Class dojo- 100% participation
• Community connection
• Made use of TA’s, Community Representatives, Administration, Student’s own network.
• Administrative Support
• Made devices available and provided technical support throughout stay-at-home
• Home visits
• Maintained Room 43 community
• ­Learning Continued
• Students felt connection to School, Classroom and to Each Other

​

Nivia Alvarado,

Humanitas Academy of Art & Technology (HAAT)

Introductions: Nivia Alvarado

• Humanitas Academy of Art & Technology (HAAT)
• 3rd year Social Studies Teacher
• Garden Club Sponsor
• Located in East Los Angeles where we share a campus with 4 other High Schools.
• Our school emphasizes interdisciplinary and inquiry-based learning that integrates art and technology.
• As an educator at HAAT
• 4 Tenets of Ethnic Studies
• Humanizing Pedagogy that is student centered.
• Create opportunities to foster students transformational resistance.

My Practice

How did HAAT maintain community?

Throughout Quarantine

• Further Developed Inter-relational Trust
• Hangout Zoom’s
• Student Tracking Sheet & Call Teams
• Self-Care Q&A’s
• Weekly Staff Check-Ins
• Tuning Protocol to Share Best Practices
• Social Media Presence

Prior to Covid-19 Stay at Home

• Professional Learning Communities
• Advisory
• Student-Led Conferences
• Open door policy among teachers and staff
• Ace Educare Grade Level Retreats
• Summer Bridge

​

What did it look like?

What was the impact?

Empowering Community

We rise up for equity by providing students with the knowledge and tools to strengthen their community.

1. Rosa Jimenez, UCLA Community School

​

• Roberto Vega, Social Justice Humanitas

Rosa Jimenez,

UCLA Community School

My Practice: Social Action Project Framework

• The UCLA Community School is a K-12 Dual Language school located in the Koreatown of Los Angeles. It is 98% low-income and includes majority first-generation immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and Asia/South Asia.
• The Mission and Vision of the school is rooted in social, racial, and language justice. In of our goals is to support students to become “critical and active participants in society.”
• It has a teaching and research partnership with the University of California, Los Angeles, which has supported experimentation and innovation.
• Data led us to understand that our curriculum and instruction was not being reflected in how students saw their role as agents of change in their community and beyond. Nor were they seeing their language skills as a critical tool for taking on these struggles.
• We developed the MISA (Multicultural), Interdisciplinary, Social Action) a researched- based rubric and framework to help us better guide curriculum and instruction development.

What does it look like?

How has it made a difference?

• Response to pandemic and our role in the Black Lives Matter movement has been robust because of existing foundation
• Students, parent, and teacher leadership in racial justice movements
• Systems and collaborative teams to support our most vulnerable students
• Data collection and analysis in quick cycles to identify student needs and act accordingly
• Curriculum rooted in MISA during distance learning
• Support staff retreat in response to #blacklivesmatter
• Researched-based frameworks rooted in community values and vision can continue to guide goal setting, mapping, and planning for continued distance learning

Roberto Vega,

Social Justice Humanitas

Our Core Values.

Love

• Restorative Justice.
• CLRP.
• Relationships (In Lak’ech).

​

Opportunity (high expectations)

• Community Partnerships.
• Peer Mentoring.
• Student Steering Committee.

​

Student Steering Committee.

Create a democratic space on campus.

Honor the voice of our student body.

Develop their cultural capital.

• Independent learners.
• Advocate for themselves and others.

Modeled by SJHA’s horizontal leadership model.

Reflections on Covid-19 Closures

Focused on student needs.

• Reliance on current practices.
• Data collection (schoology tracking and surveys).
• Mentoring.
• Teacher-student connections.

​

• Rethinking approaches & strategies.
• Reflect on student inequities.
• Transaction vs. Transformation.
• Rethink our grading/curriculum for Fall 2020.
• Antiquated vs. classical strategies.

Closing Reflections

Q & A

​

Please submit your questions via chat

We believe that...

• community is defined by students, families, and the community at large
• community schools consider the whole child
• community schools identify and lift up community assets
• engaging, rigorous and community-based teaching is foundational to community schools
• all teachers are leaders
• community schooling is rooted in racial and social justice
• community schools build and empower

the community

​

For more information:

UCLA CENTER FOR COMMUNITY SCHOOLING: https://communityschooling.gseis.ucla.

edu

​

UCLA CONSORTIUM OF COMMUNITY SCHOOLS:

https://communityschooling.gseis.ucla.edu/ucla-consortium-of-community-

schools/