10 EDCAL November 5, 2018
Community Schools, Empowerment,
Systems Thinking and Race: A Model for
Change
This dissertation was written by Jaguanana
Lathan, executive director, Equity, San Diego
County Office of Education
According to the U.S. Department of
Education, the 2012-13 national high school
completion rate for Latino (75 percent),
African American (73 percent), American
Indian (70 percent), and limited English
proficient (63 percent) students increased
slightly compared to the 2011 national
graduation data. While the national trend
showed a one percentage point gain in the
overall high school graduation rate across
all subgroups, the numbers for African
Americans, Latinos and other ethnic groups
far trail that of their White (87 percent) and
Asian (89 percent) peers.
It is also far more likely that ethnic
groups trailing in high school completion
rates live in economically disadvantaged
communities that are plagued with the
disparate effects of poverty, such as single-
family households, poor nutrition, and com-
munity safety concerns. As a result, there
has been an increase in local and national
conversations about how to best amend
inequitable educational outcomes for these
groups of students.
The conceptual framework for this study
is oriented around systems thinking, race,
empowerment theory, and community
schools and partnerships. More specifically,
this study sought to explore systems think-
ing and opportunities that schools can
explore to eradicate the current negative
racialized outcomes for African American,
Latino, other ethnic minorities, and socially
disadvantaged students. The one-year study
took place at Roses in Concrete Community
School, a newly-designed charter school
located in Oakland, Calif.
This is a case study of Roses in Concrete
(RiC), a newly designed community char-
ter school, located in Oakland,
Calif. and within the boundar-
ies of the Oakland Unified
School District. The focus of
this case study was to docu-
ment the process of imple-
mentation of RiC and under-
Lathan
stand how the community
school model and philosophy
are in direct support of and contribute to
the empowerment of African American and
Latino students.
The RiC’s community charter model
and philosophy are a direct response to the
high needs of the targeted east Oakland
community where the school is located
on Steele Street between the 580 and 13
freeways. The goal of the school is to serve
students who live between High Street and
106th Avenue.
Oakland, the third largest city in the
San Francisco Bay Area, is known for its
cultural diversity, initiation of social action,
and high rates of community violence. The
city of about 406,253 people is situated
in Alameda County. This particular area
of Oakland is predominately a racial and
ethnic mix of Latinos (47.5 percent) and
African Americans (38.1 percent). The
median household income of residents in
the targeted school area is $33,803, which
is significantly lower than the rest of the
city of Oakland at $49,721, and the county
at $69,384. In addition, the unemployment
rate in this area of east Oakland is 13.2 per-
cent, which is more than the county rate for
the targeted population at 8.5 percent.
Unfortunately, over half of all homicides
that are reported in Oakland occur in this
geographic area. As a result, many youths
in the area exhibit the same Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder symptoms as war veterans
– poor concentration, increased tendency to
overrespond when startled, and hyper-vigi-
lance to perceived threat – any one of which
can cause serious impairment to learning
(Duncan-Andrade, 2012).
Findings from this study suggest that
during its first year implementation, the
school’s leadership team and staff focused
primarily on supporting students and fami-
lies by (a) establishing a foundation of
responding to basic needs, (b) partnering
with community organizations, universities,
and activists to provide additional school
and community supports, (c) analyzing the
system that produces the current outcomes
with the intention of not reproducing ineq-
uities, and (d) empowering students and
families to have a voice and increase their
sense of agency.
This study proved to be quite rewarding
and provided great insight into what it takes
to design and launch a school with a mis-
sion and philosophy as rigorous as Roses in
Concrete Community School.
During the process, I learned that design-
ing a school system to intentionally end dis-
parate social and economic outcomes and
to positively transform the lives of students
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and communities takes courageous leader-
ship, a growth mindset, the gift of ideation,
and a committed group of adults to firmly
execute the dream into reality. This is no
easy task; in fact, there were tears of frustra-
tion, fear and concern among staff when the
honeymoon period of opening a new school
ended and the reality set in that it is hard
work to stay committed to such a rigorous
mission, when faced with the reality of the
academic and social-emotional trauma that
some of the students experienced.
However, through it all, most of the
staff held each other accountable for the
academic and climate and culture outcomes
that they set out to accomplish.
There is a lot to learn from the launch-
ing of this new school model. There is room
for growth in order for the school to fully
actualize their dreams for students and
community.
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