Since 2021, California has invested $4.1 billion in the California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP), establishing the nation’s largest state-level community schools initiative. According to new research from the Learning Policy Institute (LPI), these schools are already having positive impacts on students and families.
The report, released on Sept. 16, notes that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated longstanding challenges while simultaneously creating new ones. Chronic absenteeism spiked to unprecedented levels, assessments highlighted growing achievement gaps, and mental health challenges among students and educators intensified. These impacts were particularly severe in high-poverty schools and among historically marginalized student groups, according to the report. However, researchers said that community schools offer a comprehensive approach to addressing these challenges.
“Community schools are an evidence-based strategy in which students, families, educators, and community partners come together to organize in- and out-of-school resources in support of student success,” the report states. “They aim to improve learning conditions and support the well-being of students, families, and communities through four core pillars of integrated student supports, expanded learning opportunities, collaborative leadership, and family engagement. Although specific programs and services vary by local context, community schools focus on creating safe and engaging environments that foster academic, social, and emotional development while removing barriers to learning.”
That said, researchers emphasized that community schools are more than just a service delivery model. Rather, they are part of a “fundamental shift from factory model schooling toward a whole child, asset-based, community-engaged approach” that stresses rich learning opportunities for all students, strong teaching, meaningful family and community engagement and collaboration, a welcoming school climate, and necessary supports that address students’ barriers to learning in large part by building or repairing relationships between communities and their public schools.
Key findings
CCSPP implementation grants provided to local educational agencies in batches offer both detailed frameworks and structured support at the state and regional levels while allowing for local adaptation. The LPI report focuses on the nearly 460 schools in the first cohort of implementation grantees, as they are the only schools with a full year of student outcome data. LPI assessed the extent to which the CCSPP grants reached high-need schools and how implementation impacted student outcomes including academic achievement and attendance and suspension rates.
Researchers determined that:
- CCSPP implementation grants reached a diverse set of high-need schools throughout the state across grade-levels served, geographic region and prior exposure to the community schools model. The average school in the first cohort had roughly 90 percent of students who were from low-income households, English learners and/or in foster care.
- Community school approaches significantly reduced rates of chronic absence in the first year of implementation. CCSPP schools reduced chronic absenteeism rates by 30 percent more on average than comparable non-CCSPP schools, with improvements most pronounced in elementary schools. Researchers said that “because of the scale of the grant program, the average reduction in chronic absence rates equates to more than 5,000 additional students attending school regularly in the first year.”
- CCSPP community schools achieved a notable reduction in suspension rates. Implementation of community school approaches corresponded with a 15 percent reduction in average suspension rates. The greatest gains were in secondary schools “where baseline suspension rates were higher and where restorative practices and improved school climate may have had the greatest impact on disciplinary outcomes,” according to the report.
- CCSPP community schools improved student test scores. Schools implementing community school approaches showed small but critical gains in math compared to matched schools — roughly the equivalent of 43 additional days of learning — as well as gains in English language arts (ELA) scores — equivalent to approximately 36 additional days of learning. During this same time period, researchers noted that comparison schools showed declines in achievement in both subjects.
- Gains were largest for historically underserved students. While students from all backgrounds benefited from the community school investments, there were larger-than-average effects for Black students, English learners and socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Black students in CCSPP community schools also experienced a reduction in chronic absence and suspensions at more than double the overall rates, and “the differential impacts for Black students translate to approximately 130 days of additional learning in math and 151 days in ELA, representing substantial acceleration in academic progress,” the report states. Similarly, benefits for English learners equated to 58 and 72 additional days of learning in math and ELA, respectively, while socioeconomically disadvantaged students gained about the equivalent of 58 additional days of learning in math and 43 days of learning in ELA.
- CCSPP community schools’ test score improvements were most substantial in schools that made the greatest progress in reducing chronic absence. “Each standard deviation improvement in CCSPP school attendance was associated with a near doubling of the main effect on achievement,” according to the report.
“While this study examines traditional educational metrics — attendance, suspensions, and test scores — it is important to recognize that community schools aim to transform the entire educational experience for students and their families,” researchers concluded. “A defining feature of the community schools approach is the flexibility that schools and districts have to respond to their unique contexts. This report provides early evidence that the new resources and approaches are getting children back to school, lessening the need for exclusionary discipline, and increasing the rate of learning, especially among students who have been historically underserved.”
