Community School Information

By Raquel Topete, Principal
rtopete@mpesd.org
(408) 223-3770

Goals and Priorities

August Boeger Middle School is deeply committed to the concept of whole child-focused community schools. Based on our activities, we are seeking funding to invest in our plan to build a whole-child-focused community school. We have designed our implementation to focus on integrated student supports in Year 1 and will continue to build and develop across the comprehensive school model over the course of the 5-year grant.

School Overview, Needs and Assets

We serve a beautifully diverse community, including significant populations of students who have been historically underserved: 2.4% African-American, 73% Hispanic, 1.7% Pacific Islander, 77.5% eligible for free or reduced lunch, 39.8% English learners, 17.1% students with IEPs, and 6.2% Homeless with insecure housing.

On the California Healthy Kids Survey, only 56% of students report total school connectedness, and only 61% report having a caring relationship at school.

The Community School Leadership Council worked together over the last 18 months through our Planning Grant to gather and analyze data. Members were integral in the collection and analysis of the data.

Summary of Assets Overview

We have invested significantly in our school model to support these student populations. For example, we have the following systems of support in place:

• Site leaders participate in district DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) Advisory Committee to identify areas to improve equity and belonging. The DEIB committee developed project-based units on diversity. There is a designated time and resources to teach social-emotional learning and diversity (DEIB) lessons built into the school day.
• Extended learning opportunities for students, including a before-school "Sunrise" program, and comprehensive after-school care, which includes tutoring, and sports, and a six-week summer program with priority given to students historically underserved.

Summary of Needs

Need Integration of Student Supports
The availability and coordination of resources is not readily available or well-articulated. No clear MTSS system.

Need Improvement in Whole Child Supports
There is a need to improve support to meet the needs of all students.

Need Improvement in Student Achievement
Gaps in student achievement and targeted support for intervention, especially for students who are homeless, students with disabilities, and Hispanic and biracial students.

Core Commitments

Describe the school's commitment to implement core principals, including the Cornerstone Commitments identified in the Framework. Describe the developmental phase for exploring, emerging, evolving, and excelling the core commitments.

As a leadership team, we are deeply committed to the Cornerstone Commitments identified in the CCSPP Framework. We would categorize our commitments and structures in support of these commitments as evolving; that said, our emergence out of the pandemic has tested many of our baseline practices in a way that requires new thinking and approaches. The community school framework aligns with our school vision, and values, in integrating whole child systems of support and building a racially just relationship-centered school.

Assets-Driven and Strength-Based Practice
We recognize that our community has significant strengths alongside needs. We plan to anchor our work in strengths-based practices, staff will receive ongoing professional development in areas such as, positive behavioral supports and culturally sustaining and responsive pedagogy focused on asset-building and strengths-based practices. Staff will collaborate to share best practices and learning plans.

Racially Just and Restorative School Climates
We will implement positive behavioral interventions, supports, and restorative practices. We plan to provide additional training in racially responsive and trauma-informed practices.

Powerful, Culturally Proficient and Relevant Instruction
We have made a concerted effort to recruit and hire staff members that reflect the demographic profile of our students; for example, 70% of teachers identify as persons of color. All staff members engage in consistent professional development to ensure instructional practices support our scholars in culturally relevant and responsive practices.

Shared Decision Making and Participatory Practices
Our school has a committed Instructional Leadership Team that includes teachers and other core staff members; all significant data and decisions related to instruction are vetted through this team. Further, we have recruited highly engaged parents to lead our School Site Council and have a diverse Community School Leadership Council.

Using these grant funds, our school will invest in the following:

• Increased staffing for a mental health counselor to support the significant emotional and behavioral health needs of our student community.
• Hire a Community School Coordinator to coordinate activities.
• Develop a comprehensive Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) model.
• Ongoing professional development and collaboration to ensure staff members are aligned and committed to the core aspects of our community school practices (internal and external training opportunities), trauma-informed practices, inclusion, positive behavioral supports, MTSS, and shared decision-making practices.
• A comprehensive social-emotional growth system (Sown-To-Grow), where students can share their emotional well-being and experience at school and build critical SEL skills over time.
• Increase outreach efforts to work and parents to build positive relationships and remove barriers including the establishment of a parent resource center.
• Parent and teacher leadership development.
• Positive behavioral supports, universal interventions at Tier 1, activities for student engagement, reinforcement of positive expectations, and meaningful engagement.

Measurable Goals and Activities

Identify the school's goals and activities, and describe how progress towards goals will be measured (i.e., SMART goals).

We have established clear, measurable goals in support of our plan:

• 100% of teachers will be trained on the core aspects of our community school practices and how new roles/partnerships will expand whole-child support by June 30, 2027.
• 100% of students will have access to high-quality Tier 1 emotional well-being support weekly. We will begin with a weekly emotional check-in, and expand into social-emotional skill-building (Sown-To-Grow) by June 30, 2025.
• 100% of students will have access to high-quality Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions based on their determined needs starting by June 30, 2025, with complete implementation by June 30, 2029. We will expand our MTSS system to include emotional well-being inputs, and we will demonstrate a response to those inputs in a timely manner. Families will be collaborative partners in this process.
• Students will improve their social-emotional learning capacity, as measured by pre/posts on an annual SEL screener. By 8th grade, 80%+ of students will show improvement or high levels of capacity in Self-Awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness, Responsible Decision Making, and Relationship Skills by June 30, 2029.
• Students will experience a stronger sense of belonging, as measured by pre/posts on an annual SEL screener. By 8th grade, 80%+ of students will show improvement or high levels of capacity in the sense of belonging measures by June 30, 2029.
• Decrease the percentage of students with chronic absenteeism by 5% (currently 25.2%) by June 30, 2029.

Key Staff

Describe the system of shared governance and site-level leadership structure at your community school (this could also be a visual like an organizational chart of other graphic).

The following roles are designated as leaders of the community school approach at our school:

• Community School Coordinator
• Leadership Council
  • Principal
  • Student Advisor
  • Teachers
  • Parents
  • Community School Coordinator
  • Family Liaison
• Planned Implementation Structures
  • Weekly implementation meeting of key roles and leadership team
  • Monthly progress updates to the Instructional Leadership Team, School Site Council, and school staff
  • Annual presentation to the Governing Board

Coherence Policy and Initiative - LCAP Connections

Our community school goals are fully aligned with our district's LCAP, under Goal 3: Create a safe and supportive learning environment at all school sites where students attend and are connected to their schools. Strategies include: support to most vulnerable populations; improving student engagement and attendance; improving school climate; and increasing parent engagement.

Goal 1 in our district LCAP, Pupil Outcomes: Increase student success in English Language Arts/Literacy, Math, and Science by providing high-quality instruction that promotes college and career readiness with academic interventions and differentiated instruction to decrease the achievement gap. Aligned strategies: intervention support, additional support staff, culturally relevant instruction, and student engagement.

Strategic Community Partnerships

We plan to partner with the following organizations to implement our vision:

• Sown To Grow, a comprehensive SEL and training partner that supports student emotional wellbeing, MTSS, and our community schools model.
• Alum Rock Counseling Center 0.2 FTE Counselor providing Tier 2 counseling for students who have Medi-Cal.
• Santa Clara County Behavioral Health School Linked Services provides funding for family liaison and parent engagement activities.
• Parents in School Innovation, with training and coaching for staff on culturally responsive pedagogy and equitable leadership practices.

Artifacts Overview

Applicants may submit up to five artifacts total for each school site.

1. Artifact 1: Community Asset Mapping and Needs/Gap Analysis - Graphic and Report Findings
2. Artifact 2: Roster and Minutes ; Shared Decision-Making Council
3. Artifact 3:
   1. Letter of Support - Sown To Grow
   2. Letter of Support - Alum Rock Counseling Center
   3. Letter of Support - Healthier Kids Foundation
   4. Partnership Agreement - Santa Clara County Behavioral Health School Linked Services
   5. Parents in School Innovation