California is missing an opportunity by not integrating community schools and teacher residencies
California has made enormous investments in two programs that genuinely improve various aspects of life in the highest-needs public schools: community schools and teacher residency partnerships.
Ideally, every district could operate and sustain teacher residencies, and every school would emulate the supports of a community school. But while we build toward that future, why aren’t we maximizing the tax dollars funding these effective programs to combine their strengths and build capacity in the places where the need is greatest?
Since 2021, California has committed $4.1 billion to the California Community Schools Partnership Program to fund more than 2,500 community schools in the highest-needs districts, with $1 billion included in the state’s proposed new budget — the largest state one-year investment in the approach. Community schools take a racially just, relationship-centered approach that depends on community partnerships. They work in large part because of the simple premise that when schools provide students and families with stable access to health and social services, students show up more regularly, are better able to focus, and are more ready to learn. That last part falls to teachers.
There is growing recognition that community schools also improve educators’ satisfaction, retention and working conditions. When schools are organized to remove barriers to learning, teachers can spend more of their time teaching. And yet, the community school pillars don’t necessarily encourage community partners to help develop new and experienced educators’ ability to deliver them well, which would be especially useful after grant funds expire.
How could educator wellness become a more intentional design goal of community schools? Teacher preparation programs are ideal — but mostly unrealized — community partners in the cultivation, engagement and retention of teachers, and the state already seems to know it.
Since 2018, California has spent more than $670 million to support teacher-residency partnerships between districts and teacher preparation programs to ensure that the highest-need districts have high-quality teachers. In a teacher residency, candidates spend a year in the same school working alongside a mentor teacher, like a medical residency. Teacher-residency partnerships were initially designed to recruit, support and retain diverse educators to fill shortages. But in more reciprocal partnerships, residencies can also improve the quality, satisfaction and capacity of new and experienced teachers while reducing costs for districts and teacher preparation programs. The trouble is, teacher preparation programs don’t always know how to be community partners.
As a former director and faculty member in a private, university-based teacher-preparation program with multiple residency partnerships, and a professional development provider to roughly 1,000 community school educators in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), I see possibilities. Community schools and teacher residencies are growing in parallel, but they could be intentionally intertwined to implement and sustain the kinds of school experiences that students, communities and educators deserve.
Several structural barriers help explain why it’s not already happening. Districts are accountable to the California Department of Education for student outcomes, and teacher preparation programs answer to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. In theory, both programs serve students and educators, but they are not designed to work in tandem.
Of course, old habits also die hard. For decades, the relationship between teacher preparation programs and districts has been transactional and maybe even a bit condescending. Teacher prep programs ask districts to host candidates, but they rarely ask how they can support districts’ priorities. Once candidates are credentialed and hired, communication with the programs that prepared them tends to fade.
Community schools call for something deeper, involving shared investment, shared decision-making, and shared ownership of outcomes. That depth and coordination is more likely when funding, metrics and responsibility are shared across the systems that prepare and employ teachers.
Residencies could benefit community schools by providing a structure for consistently training and supporting new and experienced teachers in aligning their practice with effective community school practices. Plus, having more adults — teacher residents — as additional educators on campus who are connected to students and communities is always a win. At the same time, teacher prep programs should align their coursework with district practices/curriculum and ensure that teacher residents and their mentors learn research-based ways to harness the four community school pillars: integrated supports, family engagement, expanded and enriched learning time/opportunities, and collaborative leadership.
Teacher-preparation programs could step up in other ways as enduring community partners. For example, they could work alongside districts to vet instructional materials, co-design ongoing professional learning, and identify field-relevant research topics. Currently, there are few incentives, and even fewer structures, to support that shift. These barriers are not insurmountable, but overcoming them will require intentional policy choices and local leadership that align programs already in place, including:
- Leveraging grant criteria and reporting. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing should prioritize community school sites in residency grants so that new teachers are prepared with the community schools framework and teacher preparation programs can benefit from the partnership expertise of community schools. The California Department of Education should also prioritize residencies as a sustainable, educator-wellness and capacity-building strategy in community school implementation grants. Plus, if all future grants from either department include a small set of shared outcomes related to educators (such as retention, vacancy reduction, satisfaction), it might be easier to coordinate state efforts that improve schools from teacher preparation through school operations.
- Sharing resources widely. The California Department of Education funded statewide technical assistance centers for community schools, and the teacher credentialing commission did the same for residencies; they should collaborate to support districts, schools and community partners in adopting the community schools framework and designing residencies regardless of grant money.
- Encouraging teacher preparation programs to become community partners. Policymakers should nudge teacher preparation programs to align their recruitment, coursework and field experiences with the needs of the communities they serve through state credentialing requirements for teacher candidates and programs — whether those communities have officially designated community schools or not.
Community schools and teacher residency partnerships have helped us figure out what kids and their teachers need to thrive. Sometimes California doesn’t need new, innovative programs; it just needs to weave together the ones that are already working.
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Rebecca Hatkoff, Ph.D, founded Possibilities Unbound to develop humanizing and love-soaked practices and systems for public school students and educators. She is the former director of teacher education at Claremont Graduate University.
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