SHASTA COUNTY
Issue 6 Fall 2024
A publication of the UCLA Center for Community Schooling, featuring multimedia public scholarship to inform the collective struggle for democracy, justice and public education.
I am excited and honored to serve as Issue Editor for the Shasta County Office of Education (SCOE) feature in the UCLA Center for Community Schooling Journal. Over the past year, SCOE has served as one of three Deep Dive Transformation Partners for the California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP). In this role, SCOE has contributed to a shared understanding of the opportunities and challenges inherent in implementing community schooling by engaging in learning exchanges, role-alike peer learning networks, and storytelling initiatives.
Shasta County, situated in the upper Sacramento Valley and extending into the southern reaches of the Cascade Mountain Range, comprises many rural communities and the city of Redding, its county seat. About 37,000 children are educated in SCOE’s 25 school districts. These districts span about 3,800 square miles of beautiful mountainous terrain, providing numerous educational opportunities– scientific inquiry, outdoor education, to name a few. Yet, the vast geographic spread also comes with its own set of unique challenges to providing equitable education to every SCOE student.
The stories in this issue illustrate how SCOE utilizes the community schooling model to address the unique needs of their rural school districts and schools. Interdependence is a long-held tradition in rural communities that often have less access to social structures that provide essential services such as healthcare and education. SCOE has grounded its work in this tradition of interdependence, and their passion and expertise in implementing community schooling stems from a deep understanding of how the principles of community schooling align with the values, assets, and needs of the rural communities that comprise Shasta County.
This issue features four diverse perspectives on community school in Shasta County, all highlighting the power of collaboration to ensure inclusivity and support. The School Case focuses on Igo-Ono Elementary, a small rural school where Brayden McClung, a Community Connect Coordinator and SCOE alumnus, ensures students and families receive the support they need to thrive and learn. The Teacher Scholarship feature tells the story of Shaw Tiefenbach, whose journey from early childhood educator to mental health practitioner emphasizes the importance of addressing students’ well-being by supporting their whole family. In the Youth Research video, graduate students share their experiences working as mental health practitioners in SCOE schools, underscoring how partnerships with local universities foster learning and directly support the community. Finally, the Policy ABCs article highlights a meaningful collaboration between SCOE and local American Indian tribes, resulting in impactful policy changes that promote inclusivity and have even shaped state law.
We are deeply grateful to our colleagues in Shasta County for sharing their community schooling stories. If you have ideas for how we can help the century-old community schools movement focus on the big ideas and the journey of public education, please drop us a line!
Thank you,
Lauren Kinnard
CS Journal as a Learning Tool
Our aim for each issue of the Community Schooling Journal is that practitioners, researchers, families, and students find it to be an impact learning tool. To this end, we’ve provided a discussion guide that spans the four features of the issue and includes discussion prompts related to the issues’s main themes.
We are grateful to engage local artists in sharing their artwork for each issue. This issue we have two artists: a teacher artist, (Cory Poole) and a three-year old student artist (Zamora).
Cover Photo by Cory Poole
This view of Whiskeytown Lake and Shasta Bally represents Shasta County’s sunny climate, beautiful scenery, and the diverse range of outdoor adventures for which our region is known. The Whiskeytown National Recreation Area was significantly impacted by the devastation of the 2018 Carr Fire, but its recovery and regrowth are a testament to resilience.
The photograph was taken by Cory Poole, a high school teacher in Redding, California, where he teaches Calculus, Physics, and Astronomy and coaches the Science Bowl team. He is also a photographer specializing in landscape, nature, and astrophotography, spending his free time hiking and documenting the beauty of Northern California and beyond.
Art by Zamora, age 3
Zamora, 3-years old, shares that she is part of a big group of people that her teacher calls “my community.” Zamora knows that “My community is good because they take care of me.” Represented by the circles in her drawing, Zamora shares how her big sister, Rihanna, does her hair in tiny braids with beads, and her Grandma picks her up from school and “sometimes lays down with me and closes her eyes.” She also has a big brother Andre, and another sister Jazmine. Zamora knows that her teacher is also part of her community. “She is fun and nice.”