Empowered Leadership
Leadership looks different in a community school model. We work really hard to create an environment where anyone can take leadership in improving our school.”
Megan McCurley, Community School Coordinator, Durham Public Schools
To dig deeper, the UCLA Center for Community Schooling is re-releasing “Collaborative Leadership as the Cornerstone of Community Schools” with a new forward. The brief, initially released in 2021, describes what is possible when educators, families and community partners come together to improve their school community and the policies, structures and practices that support collaborative leadership.
Collaborative Leadership as the Cornerstone of Community Schools: Policy, Structures and Practice
Rebekah Kang, UCLA Community School, Marisa Saunders, UCLA Center for Community Schooling and Kyle Weinberg, San Diego Education Association
A New Forward
Three years ago, pre-pandemic, we teamed up to explore the importance of collaborative leadership within community schools–we wanted to understand what it looked like, how it worked, and why it mattered to both students and practitioners. The first author, Rebekah Kang, a founding teacher and a coordinator at the UCLA Community School located in the Los Angeles Unified School District, wanted to step back to study and understand the collaborative leadership model at the school. She wanted to gain a deeper understanding of what made the collaborative leadership successful at the school and to provide a framework for schools who were interested in strengthening collaboration at their schools. The second author, Marisa Saunders, a UCLA researcher, was engaged in a study of teacher leadership and ownership and its relationship to student learning at UCLA Community School and aimed to explore and lift this powerful connection. Kyle Weinberg, a visiting teacher scholar from San Diego, conducted a dissertation on the role of teachers as collaborative leaders at UCLA Community School and the structural and cultural systems that support or hinder democratic decision-making. The result of our partnership was “Collaborative Leadership as the Cornerstone of Community Schools: Policy, Structures, and Practice,” released in March 2021.
This issue of Community Schooling, with a focus on the collective efforts of educational leaders, community members and university partners to transform their local community and schools, reminds us that transformation is possible when partners come together to develop and act on a shared vision. While the landscape across the country has shifted since our initial inquiry–shifts that have created a new and unprecedented era of support and expansion for community schooling–collaborative leadership remains at the heart. California’s historical investment of $4.1 billion to support the transformation of schools to community schools provides us with an opportunity to lift the critical leadership role of practitioners, alongside students, families, and community partners. Together, they are leading, creating, and sustaining the supportive school and classroom environments that nurture a strong sense of community and belonging. And in doing so, they are developing rich learning experiences that build on students’ strengths and interests.
In addition to a shift in the landscape, our individual positions and focus have evolved in relation to the community schools movement.
Rebekah Kang is now serving as the Assistant Principal at the UCLA Community School. She continues to believe in the power of collaborative leadership as a strategy for change management and school improvement. Collaborative leadership within community schools is a powerful lever for transformation not only for students and families, but for the educators, the community, and the broader education system.
Marisa Saunders, associate director for research at the UCLA Center for Community Schooling, continues to study and share the work of powerful community schools as a means of informing and inspiring the community schools movement. The UCLA Center for Community Schooling, in partnership with the Alameda County Office of Education, National Education Association, and Californians for Justice, has recently been selected to serve as the State’s Transformational Assistance Center. In this new role, the Center aims to continue to lift the power of shared leadership and strive to model transformational leadership.
Kyle Weinberg is now the president of San Diego Education Association (SDEA), proudly organizing alongside 6000+ union educators in San Diego Unified School District. SDEA is part of the California Alliance for Community Schools, a coalition of educators and community allies united to win well-resourced, community-centered, anti-racist and democratically-run schools. We believe such schools are necessary to build a more just, equitable, and participatory society.
We know that transformation can only happen when students, families, community members and educators come together to form authentic partnerships. This brief seeks to present a roadmap for schools and districts that want to implement a collaborative leadership model to build community schools that distribute power and control to the communities in which they seek to serve.”
As schools and districts across the country transform to community schools, we felt it was an opportune time to revisit the brief and reaffirm our understanding of shared power and collaborative leadership as foundational to the approach. We know that transformation can only happen when students, families, community members and educators come together to form authentic partnerships. This brief seeks to present a roadmap for schools and districts that want to implement a collaborative leadership model to build community schools that distribute power and control to the communities in which they seek to serve.
Executive Summary
We always go back to the values and principles every time we start a new initiative… Is this really democratic? Is this really the best way?”
Principal Leyda Garcia, UCLA Community School
This brief describes the policies, structures and practices that support UCLA Community School’s vision and commitment to collaborative decision-making as a core pillar of its approach to community schooling. As part of the national community schools movement, the UCLA Community School (UCLA-CS) collaborates with the University of California, Los Angeles and other local partners to provide an integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development, and family and community engagement. Integrating school and community resources creates opportunities to involve multiple stakeholders in addressing issues that may impede student learning. Collaborative leadership also enables educators to incorporate the rich knowledge and resources of the community including its cultural wealth and diversity.
While much has been written regarding the importance of raising the profile of teachers in school governance and decision-making, the interplay between the formal empowerment of teachers through policy and structural systems and educator decision-making roles in everyday practice is poorly understood. Community schools, wherein teachers take on a range of roles including as school leaders in collaboration with families and community members, provide an important forum for understanding how collaborative leadership is supported by policy and organizational structures, and brought to life through critical practices that uphold democratic problem-solving.
At UCLA-CS formal policies codify collaborative leadership—an essential first step in ensuring the voices of multiple stakeholders are heard. Policies guide decisions and serve to establish significant roles for stakeholders. Policies can also facilitate a shared commitment to implementing a vision that all stakeholders collectively construct based on the strengths and needs of the community. The school’s Elect-to-Work Agreement (EWA), for example—a feature of LA Unified’s Pilot Schools Initiative—outlines decision-making roles in site governance and concretizes the expectation that teachers will engage, alongside community members, in shared decision-making through expanded leadership roles. Policy review processes serve as an important mechanism for stakeholders to recommit to a shared vision and common goals.
Governance structures and systems—defined, supported and shaped by local policies—delineate power. In contrast to a top-down hierarchical model, UCLA-CS’s democratic governance structures are grounded in a flat ecosystem of governance teams that aim to engage all stakeholders in decision making. In this way, community school educators, whose contextualized knowledge of the community, culture and identity of students and their families is core to their practice, have the ability and responsibility to determine and drive policies and practices consistent with shared goals.
Community schools, wherein teachers take on a range of roles including as school leaders in collaboration with families and community members, provide an important forum for understanding how collaborative leadership is supported by policy and organizational structures, and brought to life through critical practices that uphold democratic problem-solving.”
Not covered within governing documents, policies or an ecosystem of structures are the everyday practices that define relationships and guide how people work together. In response, UCLA-CS has explicitly shaped the ways in which people work together by codifying collaborative practices that promote the distribution of power to all stakeholders.
As an educator-run community school, UCLA Community School establishes the policies, and maintains an ecosystem of governance structures that support educators in working collaboratively to influence the learning environment in ways that best meet the needs of students and families. Collaborative leadership supports and brings meaning to the school’s deep and meaningful partnerships with UCLA, community partners and families. Collaborative leadership also provides a mechanism to ensure the integration of other core pillars of its community school approach: integrated student supports, expanded learning time and opportunities, and community and family engagement.
The hard work and efforts that support collaborative leadership and the policies and structures that support it are vital to building an inclusive and empowering school wherein all stakeholders feel that their expertise and commitment to the community are recognized and valued. Indeed, collaborative leadership redefines the role of educators as one where establishing and maintaining democratic spaces is paramount. Collaborative leadership enables educators, students and families to work together to define and co-create learning environments that allow everyone to learn, grow, and thrive.
6 MINUTE READ
This research brief describes the policies, structures and practices that support a commitment to collaborative decision-making. The brief, with a new forward, demonstrates how collaborative leadership at the UCLA Community School serves to uphold democratic problem-solving and mediate the integration of the rich knowledge, expertise and resources of both the school and community to enrich students’ learning. We have shared the Executive Summary here. Click the button below to read the full brief, a 25-minute read.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
REPORT LINKS
CITATION
Kang, R., Saunders, M., & Weinberg, K. (2021). Collaborative leadership as the cornerstone of community schools: Policy, structures, and practice. Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Community Schooling.