The job as the Educational Community Worker at Duarte was part of a new initiative started in 2019 by the LA County Office of Education aiming to bring together county agencies, local nonprofits, community partners, and school districts to create “community schools” in 15 different high-poverty school districts. The goal is to make the schools hubs in their surrounding communities for services beyond academics and to target the non-academic needs of children and families.

Community schools adopt the idea that inside-school learning is intimately connected to aspects of children’s lives outside of school. By only prioritizing academics, more traditional schools are not addressing many of the fundamental barriers to learning.

For example, studies have shown that students who are hungry are less likely to effectively learn. Similarly, students who experience community or household violence are less likely to progress academically. Student success in school therefore is largely determined outside school walls.

Assessing these needs on the ground by getting to know the students, families, and the community at Duarte High School was Covarrublas’ new job description. But those needs changed drastically when the school went fully remote with only a couple days under his belt.

It is this county-wide approach that makes LA County Office of Education’s model unique, and it positioned them well during the pandemic. In 2018 there were roughly 5,000 community schools across the United States, and since then the movement towards community schools has only gained momentum. Most community school models are initiated by the schools themselves or by school districts convinced by the research. But LACOE’s program goes even higher than the districts, allowing for more resource sharing at the county level and coordination among, but also beyond, school districts or individual schools. Having the personnel on the ground, but coordinating at all levels – community, district, and county – allowed for the kind of agility that these schools demonstrated during the pandemic.

“The unique thing about the LA County model is that it comes with a community school coordinator, which is the specialist role; but then it also comes with an educational community worker,” said Umaña. “It’s operated from the LA County Office of Education. That is a little bit different in terms of any other community school models.”

Read the full article about community schools by Melanie Bavaria at The 74.