"Partners Are the Heart of What We Do": Building Community School Partnership Systems in Oakland

• In Event: Taking Collective Action and Responsibility to Address Inequity: The Case of Partnerships for Community Schools

Abstract

Objectives
This paper draws upon Oakland Unified School District’s ten years’ experience as the nation’s first full service community school (FSCS) district. It highlights the foundational role of partnerships in the initiative’s implementation, effectiveness and sustainability. We address OUSD’s system-building approach, describe how it framed partnership work, and elaborate key partnership practices and tools at district and site levels. We discuss how Oakland’s systemic approach resulted in greater school site integration of partners’ work and cross-district partnership alignment, while also promoting place-based adaptation in partners’ activities.

Perspectives/Theoretical Framework
Oakland’s FSCS initiative rests on three foundational perspectives. First, initiative leaders held that disruption of inequities in the resources and opportunities available to OUSD students required system change at central office and school levels, in contrast to a school-by-school, program-adoption approach. A second position considered the “system” relevant to a whole-child FSCS initiative to extend beyond the school and district to include the social and health services, community-based organizations and other local resources essential to meeting students’ needs. Partners thus figured centrally in OUSD’s FSCS initiative from the outset, and all Oakland schools collaborate with partners. Third, district leaders subscribed to the view that system change and productive partnerships could not result from central office mandates, but needed partners’ active involvement in FSCS implementation and “top down support for bottom up change.”

Methods
Author A started documentation and analysis of OUSD’s system change process in 2011. This research involved more than 90 interviews, many observations, and on-going document analysis. In 2014, Author B began evaluation of emerging FSCS efforts. Over the subsequent 5 years, Author B and colleague conducted over 75 interviews, surveyed nearly 450 teachers, made multiple site visits, and analyzed administrative data from across the district. Together, these two research projects underscore connections between district-level partnership policies and site-level partnership practices, and highlight factors key to OUSD’s system-wide implementation of school-community partnerships.

Results/Significance
District leaders employed a variety of tools—culture shifts, policy levers, site level supports and structural changes—to bring about fundamental change in partnership operations at central office and site levels. The result has been a transformation in OUSD partnership work from 2011--when not even a partner list existed—to coordinated, aligned partnerships educators deem the “heart” of the FSCS work. Presently, more than 300 community-based agencies collaborate with Oakland schools; each partner aligns its work with school needs and culture, while also following district partnership guidelines. Much research has chronicled the successes and challenges of school-community partnerships, but it has largely focused on site-level practices. This paper features OUSD’s distinctive district-wide partnership strategy that marries a systemic partnership approach with the flexibility and responsiveness of a grassroots, community-driven initiative to create positive, place-based supports for youth and their families.

Authors

• Kendra Fehrer, John W. Gardner Center

• Milbrey W. McLaughlin, Stanford University