South Whittier School District held a Community School Planning Grant Committee meeting on Wednesday, November 15th, at the district to give South Whittier staff, community partners and parents an opportunity to work collaboratively and provide input regarding community school planning.
Being a community school means reinventing what schools do to ensure schools and communities are accessing and receiving the services they need in order to continue working towards closing the equity gap. A community school is comprised of five pillars that include collaborative leadership and practices, active family and community engagement, expanded and enriched learning time and opportunities, and integrated student supports. The implementation grant would provide funding for five years to support the plan.
During the meeting attendees were broken up into groups and each group was given a topic to discuss and provide feedback regarding school and community needs and any gaps they felt needed to be addressed. Each group consisted of different stakeholders in order to assure diverse feedback and all feedback was documented by a group facilitator. Topics included positive school climate, college and career readiness, academic enrichment and intervention, family engagement, physical health and well-being, and basic needs and special populations.
After group discussions, each group was asked to present four points, what do you notice about your topic, what do you wonder, what are the needs, and what is the top priority from the list they discussed.
This meeting was the second of four Community School Planning Grant Committee meetings the district will hold. The next meeting will take place on January 17th, at the district office.