by Steven Kellner, Ed.D.

The Report and Recommendations of the CaliforniaAdvisory Task Force on Alternative Schools encouragesalternative schools to develop a learner-centered approachto teaching and learning that is linked to—and intentionallydesigned to support—high expectations for studentoutcomes (John W. Gardner Center, 2020). Whereas astudent-centered approach centers student learning, alearner-centered approach centers the learning of allmembers of the school community—inclusive of leaders,teachers, staff, parents, and students—and cultivates theconditions for their individual and collective growth anddevelopment (McCombs & Whisler, 1997).

CULTIVATING COLLECTIVERESPONSIBILITY FOR

POSTSECONDARY SUCCESSAlternative Education Lessons from La Sierra Charter School

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 1

I N S I G H T S F R O MT U L A R E C O U N T Y

CAL IFORNIA LEARNING

COLLABORAT IVE ON

ALTERNAT IVE EDUCATION

Profiles in California Alternative Education

La Sierra High School Military Academy(grades 9-12)La Sierra Junior Military Academy (grades7-8)La Sierra Charter Independent Studies

Operationalizing a commitment to both highexpectations and a learner-centered designoften proves challenging: How do educatorsset high expectations for all students andsupport them as individual learners? Is itpossible to be learner-centered and hold highexpectations, or does a learner-centeredapproach necessitate varied expectations?These questions can become especiallysalient in alternative schools where, typically,students' need are complex, and it is hard toknow which expectations are in service totheir growth and development. And yet the Task Force’s recommendationshighlight that these are precisely the settingswhere these commitments may be mostimportant—perhaps even symbiotic in the waythat they catalyze and strengthen oneanother. How then might we set highexpectations for students and create theconditions for a learner-centered approach toensure that students meet them? La Sierra,an alternative school serving students ingrades 6 through 12 in Tulare County,California, provides one example of what thislooks like in practice.

INTRODUCTION: LA SIERRA

Authorized by the Tulare County Office ofEducation, La Sierra Charter School is one ofthree military academies in California, and itoffers the following alternative options:

La Sierra was established in 2000 in an effortto provide a tuition-free school of choice forstudents who were not experiencing successwithin the local public schools, yet remainedcommitted to “honor, leadership,postsecondary ambition, and service” (TulareCounty Office of Education, 2020). La Sierra’s programs are co-located on asingle campus in Visalia, California andtogether they serve 250 students who areadmitted through an application process. Themajority (75%) of La Sierra’s students enterin need of credit acceleration and/or recoveryand 87% qualify for free or reduced-pricemeals. Additionally, one in five students at La Sierra has an Individualized EducationProgram (IEP), a rate that is nearly twice ashigh as the County’s overall percentage ofstudents with IEPs in grades 9 through 12.

La Sierra endeavors to provide a rigorousacademic education in a strict militaryenvironment, but this is just part of theirstory. La Sierra is also deeply committed tothe whole child—the whole student—and withthis in mind, it has a robust vision for theirstudents that goes beyond academic successto include qualities associated with being“college- and career-oriented for a successfulfuture” (Tulare County Office of Education,2020). Whereas many alternative educationsettings tend to set their sights ratherexclusively on increasing graduation rates,La Sierra goes one step further. For La Sierra, graduation is not the end goal, it isthe starting point; the end goal is for theirstudents to have access to a robust range ofpostsecondary options, including but notlimited to college.

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Due, in part, to its capacity to translate theseideas into practice, in 2011 La Sierra wasone of eleven California schools selected forthe prestigious California AcademicPartnership Program (CAPP) Model SchoolProgram.

CENTERING LEARNING, GROWTH, ANDDEVELOPMENT: SHIFTING FROMGRADUATION TO GRADUATES

When La Sierra was selected to be part ofthe CAPP Model School Program, a teamincluding the principal and seven teacherswas invited to attend CAPP’s professionaldevelopment conference at Fresno Statefocused on what it takes to cultivate acollege-going culture. Established in 1984 bythe California State Legislature andadministered by the California StateUniversity, CAPP focuses on supportingschools with low numbers of studentsentering college to “improve the academicpreparation and college readiness” of theirstudents (California State University, 2020).While CAPP provides a range of servicesdesigned to improve teaching and learningthroughout California’s secondary schools,their efforts focus exclusively oncomprehensive high schools with oneexception: La Sierra.

Rhonda Hash, one of the La Sierra teacherspresent during that first convening, recallsthe team’s conversation over lunch on thesecond day of the conference: “We sataround the table and one of us said—‘we’redoing it wrong.’ It was an amazing moment.”

La Sierra’s teachers and administrators hadalways been deeply committed to theirstudents; their students arrived withcomplex needs, and they worked tirelessly tosupport them. And yet, as Rhonda looks backon that moment, she remembers thatsomething shifted: They realized that whilethey had cared deeply for their students, theyhad not necessarily prepared all of them forvibrant postsecondary options. In Rhonda’swords, “We all knew at that moment that weowed a postsecondary opportunity to everystudent.”

Another La Sierra teacher who attended theCAPP convening recalls the shift as well: “Itwas about a different finish line. … As a staffwe were so focused on graduation that wewere missing the bigger picture.” La Sierra’sprincipal, Anjelica Zermeno, remembers thatthe team left the workshop committed topreparing all of their students forpostsecondary success, however studentsenvisioned or defined their path: “It is aboutstudents having Plan A, B, and C all of whichare postsecondary.” There was a collectiveunderstanding between Anjelica and theteachers that they could do better by theirstudents by preparing them for success aftergraduation.

The team also recognized that such atransformation would not take place overnight. Looking back, Anjelica remembers thatthey all knew that they had a long way to go.She recalls that at that time, only 11% of La Sierra’s graduates enrolled in a two- orfour-year college in the year followinggraduation.

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La Sierra’s students needed support tied toparticular—and more robust—expectations.Not only would this shift take time, it wouldalso take a different level of effort. Whilereflecting on her own journey through collegeand her early postsecondary years, Rhondanotes, “I had to fight so hard for myself [duringthose years], but I wasn’t fighting hard enoughfor my students. It was a real wake-up call.”

By all accounts, both the students and theadults who are part of La Sierra’s communityresponded to this call: Today, over 86% of La Sierra’s students complete career andtechnical education (CTE) coursework, 95.3%of their students graduate, and 87% of thosestudents enroll in a two- or four-year college inthe year following graduation (Tulare CountyOffice of Education, 2020).

Many educators can relate to the type ofinspiration the La Sierra team experienced atthe CAPP workshop. What is unique about La Sierra’s story is that they translated thatinspiration into sustained, intentional, andeffective action. This approach is emblematicof a learner-centered model whereinteachers and site leaders are takingintentional steps to sustain their own learningand development to serve their students’learning and development. Three strategiesthat were central to their efforts aredescribed in the infographic below.

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3 CENTRAL STRATEGIES

CultivateDistributed Leadership

Implement 4 Programmatic Elements

Facilitate SuccessfulTransitions to

Postsecondary Options

School-Wide Success

Curriculum

Parent Engagement

Expanded CTE

PathwaysConcurrent

Enrollment inCommunity

CollegeEngage a

CommunityPartner

CULTIVATING DISTRIBUTEDLEADERSHIP

Given the breadth and depth of students'needs in alternative education environments,it takes more than a set of practices tosupport the kind of holistic outcomes La Sierra describes in its vision for allgraduates. Hollywood has long lifted up thesingle teacher or principal who transforms aschool through sheer force of will; however,the reality is that the full story of such changeis often more complex. Reflecting back onher early days at the school, Anjelica notes,“We were not a big school. I didn’t havelayers of administrators to turn to. I knew ifwe were going to change outcomes for kids ithad to be through each one of our teachers.”

To that end, Anjelica doubled down on adistributed leadership approach. With twelvefull-time teachers, it took the shared vision,commitment, and participation of the entirestaff to shift from focusing on graduation topostsecondary options for every student.

According to Ritchie and Woods (2007),within a distributed leadership model, theprincipal and teachers share authority andpower; teachers take leading roles, assumeresponsibility, and act independently asindividuals or groups. While this modelassumes that leadership roles are distributedamong the traditional administration andfaculty groups in a high school, it is oftenimplemented in ways that limit distribution toa small subset of a school’s teachers, suchas lead teachers or department chairs.

Natsiopoulou and Giouroukakis (2010), whohave studied this extensively in their nativeGreece, note that while distributed leadershipmodels may function more effectively thantraditional models, they do not alwayspromote robust participation and harmoniouscollaboration among all stakeholders.Anjelica’s approach sought to do more thanactivate the participation of a few key teacherleaders. Anjelica set out to activate an entirelydifferent culture, including new norms andpractices, rooted in an ethic of sharedand collaborative responsibility—perhapsbetter described as “democratic anddistributed leadership.” It was not enough forteachers to simply “have a voice” in runningthe school—they would actually have tosupport student wellbeing and success—interaction by interaction, moment by moment.

At La Sierra, sharing leadership responsibilityfor student learning and achievement included attention to curriculum, instruction, andpedagogy. This went beyond contentexpertise and delivery, as one teacherexplains: "We needed to grow a team of like-minded individuals who worked together toimprove outputs for students. It was more thanacademics; social-emotional learning was key.Teachers needed to be trained in this areaand everyone needed to see their student asa whole, not just a number in their class."

In addition to training, it was critical that thestaff build trust in each other as allies in

their collective effort to transform teachingand learning.

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Teaching, even at a small alternative school,is by its nature, an isolating profession. Theteam at La Sierra had talked aboutcollaboration as a component ofpersonalizing teaching and learning,providing social-emotional support, andfostering a college-going culture. Now theyneeded to turn their plans into action.

This involved several new practices,including teachers observing one another’steaching practice and providing each otherwith feedback. “There is no question thatmany of us were out of our comfort zone...itwasn’t easy,” says Rhonda. Rhondarecalls how, at first, some teachers feltdefensive of their practice, and asserted thatit was not appropriate for their colleagues toobserve them and offer feedback—especiallycolleagues who taught outside of theirsubject area. Rhonda notes that what gotthem through was their commitment to theirstudents and their “willingness to have hardconversations without taking it personally.”

In addition to observing one another’spractice, the teachers also found that co-teaching lessons was an effective startingpoint for improving their classroom practices.At most schools, and La Sierra was noexception, when another adult steps into aclassroom, students know that something isout of the ordinary. “At first the students wereconfused,” remembers Rhonda, “they wouldsay things like ‘hey, you're not supposed tobe in this class’ and it just reminded me howlittle, as teachers, we were in each other’sclassrooms. It was a wake-up call.”

Over time, once co-teaching of lessons andvisiting one another’s classrooms were morecommonplace, students’ comments changed.One teacher elaborates, “They started totease us about it. They would say ‘geez willyou guys just leave us alone already’ and thatwas when knew it was working!” The students’responses reveal that the teachers’ efforts tolearn and improve were visible, promptingconfusion at first and then easing into anacceptance of the new normal. This providesa poignant illustration of the way a learner-centered approach facilitates continuouslearning and improvement. ENGAGING A STRATEGIC PARTNER

In addition to engaging the partnership of herteachers, Anjelica also knew that she neededto engage a strategic partner to support theireffort. Anjelica wasn’t looking for a traditionaltechnical assistance provider or consultantwho would offer a short-term engagementfocused on a discrete area of practice.Transforming La Sierra’s culture andpractices to reflect a learner-centeredapproach to achieving high expectationswould require the wisdom and presence of apartner who not only understood this vision,but also understood how to support thischange journey over time.

Anjelica remembers looking for someonewho would make a long-term commitment towalk alongside them through this process.“We knew this was not going to changeovernight,” she recalls, “so it was critical thatwe work with someone who was going to bewith us for multiple years.”

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California Education Partners, with expertisein both school change processes and learner-centered design, proved to be just the partnershe was looking for. In the spring of 2018, the La Sierra teamjoined California Education Partners’ Collegeon Track collaboration, a collection of schoolscommitted to improving college access forBlack, Latinx, and socioeconomicallydisadvantaged students through the 2022-23school year. The College on Track network ispart of The Bill & Melinda Gates FoundationNetwork for School Improvement (NSI)initiative. Launched in 2018, the NSI supportsnetworks of schools to support students ofcolor and low-income students to increaseaccess to and success within institutions ofhigher education. The students at La Sierraare now part of more than 250,000 studentsacross 13 states supported by the NSI.

With a focus on sustainability, CaliforniaEducation Partners’ approach is grounded inthe belief that when it comes to driving changein classrooms, those working at all levelswithin districts are best positioned to pusheach other to engage in the kind of learningand improvement that would forge lastingsolutions. California Education Partners’approach aims to create a culture ofcollaborative continuous learning andimprovement, essentially cultivating andadvancing a learner-centered approach withinthe change process itself. The changeprocess, in turn, is not something to pursue orendure in order to eventually achieve aparticular school culture, but an opportunity inand of itself to cultivate and advance a newculture (California Education Partners, 2020).

The work of each team in the College on Tracknetwork is connected to the three principles ofheart, head, and hands. California EducationPartners defines heart as cultivating andcommunicating an equity-centeredimprovement culture and mindsets thatempower educators and their system to dotheir best work for each student. Likewise, thehead principal supports teams to adopt, utilize,and curate a coherent and contextually drivensuite of tools, processes, and structures thatestablishes a collaborative, continuousimprovement approach that better serves eachstudent. Finally, California Education Partnersemphasizes the importance of the handsprinciple to develop a systemic collaborativeapproach that leverages the expertise andperspectives of individuals throughout theirorganization, as well as students, communitymembers, and other districts and thoughtpartners.

Ideally, outside partners can stretch thethinking of school staff, and support them tonotice and challenge the status quo within theirschools and districts. They can also create theconditions for those designing andimplementing the change process to participatein a process of continuous inquiry, reflection,and improvement. California EducationPartner’s network did both. “The [College onTrack] improvement convenings were alwaysgreat, but our heads would be hurting on theway home!” Anjelica remembers. “The driveshome were when we did some of our bestthinking.” This partnership stretched theirthinking, but it also offered practical support.

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"Working with California Education Partnerswas great,” reflects Rhonda. “As teachers, wewere part of [our school’s] decision-makingteam. We [were] a resource for the other staffmembers and this gave us the tools to do justthat.”

La Sierra’s willingness to seek outsidesupport, whether that was going to FresnoState for a CAPP conference or embarkingupon a deep and long-term relationships withCalifornia Education Partners, is not commonamong most high schools, much lessalternative schools. More often than not,teachers and site leaders at alternativeschools report feeling that they cannot committo long-term capacity-building partnerships orprofessional development because theirpriority has to be attending to the needs of thestudents who are right in front of them. Insuch contexts, partnerships and capacitybuilding efforts are often framed as luxuries,as matters that can and must wait. But at La Sierra, it was precisely their commitment tothe students who were right in front of themthat was the impetus for their journey withCalifornia Education Partners.

Anjelica and her teachers knew that theircommitment to their students necessitatedboth attending to the crisis of the day andinvesting in their capacity to improve studentexperiences and outcomes into the future.Anjelica may have opened the door to thispartnership, but it was the dedicated staffmembers of La Sierra who walked throughthat door to create lasting change for thestudents.

IMPLEMENTING FOURPROGRAMMATIC ELEMENTS

In addition to fostering democratic anddistributed leadership and engaging thesustained support of a strategic partner, La Sierra implemented four programmaticelements that raised expectations of students—shifting the focus from graduation tograduates, and fostering a learner-centeredapproach to reaching those expectations.

School-Wide Access to InformationRegarding Postsecondary Pathways

Research has shown that student access toinformation regarding postsecondary optionsoften varies widely within and across schools(Avery & Kane, 2004; Gandara, 2001). Somestudents receive expert support fromcounselors, college representatives, orcareer liaisons, and others do not. La Sierraviewed this as a form of tracking, theinequitable distribution of knowledge based onassumptions regarding student ability orpotential, and as such, sought to disrupt thispractice by providing every student withinformation regarding college and careerpathways and what they needed to do toaccess their pathways of interest. EveryMonday, teachers provided students withaccess to this information through what theycalled the Monday Matters SuccessCurriculum. This staff-developed curriculumfocused on College and Career ExplorationLessons for all students grades 7-12(Tulare County Office of Education, 2020).

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Students met with the same Monday Mattersteacher for the entire school year, allowing forauthentic mentoring relationships to developover time. One hallmark of the MondayMatters Success Curriculum was that itattended to both knowledge of postsecondaryoptions and knowledge of self. Students weresupported to reflect on their strengths,weaknesses, hopes and concerns, and to usethese insights as guideposts, pointing them inthe direction of their next steps inclusive ofthe support they would need to navigate thosesteps successfully.

Parent Engagement aroundPostsecondary Success

Middle and high schools often engageparents by providing them with parenteducation in the form of advice orinstructions on how to support their students.Research has found that it is far moreeffective to engage parents as authenticpartners in the students’ education; thisproves to be even more important withstudents who are not experiencing successin the traditional educational system (Fehrer,2019). Through their outreach efforts, La Sierra’s faculty discovered that only onein five La Sierra parents held apostsecondary degree. It is common forparents without college degrees to feel thatthey do not have an important role to play insupporting their child’s postsecondarysuccess. Recognizing that nothing could befurther from the truth, La Sierra set out tobuild parents’ capacity to engage as fullpartners in helping students imagine andpursue a range of postsecondary options.

La Sierra created a program titled ParentEnhanced Awareness for College and CareerExcellence (PEACCE). This programincluded bimonthly meetings organizedaround a curriculum designed by La Sierra toguide parents in helping their studentsbecome more successful. While PEACCEprovided parents with important informationregarding postsecondary options, it alsoemphasized the importance of their role intheir child’s life during this time ofdevelopment which strengthened their senseof efficacy in supporting their child’spostsecondary success.

Researchers have often noted that one of thepersistent barriers to postsecondary successis students’ limited exposure to differentpathways and limited access to the supportthey need to pursue those paths, highlightingthat it can be difficult for students to imaginea future they have not seen (McLaughlin,2018). Many of La Sierra’s students and theirparents had never been to a college campus,and so in an effort to build each family’scapacity to imagine college as a viablepostsecondary option, the PEACCE programorganized college visits that parents,students and La Sierra staff attendedtogether, nurturing their collectiveimagination and sense of postsecondarypossibilities.

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Robust Career and TechnicalEducation

Another programmatic element that wasinstrumental in creating a postsecondaryculture at La Sierra was an effort to ensurethat students were well-prepared for successin postsecondary career and technicaleducation (CTE) opportunities. Thecategorical funding for CTE courses,provided through the Regional OccupationalProgram model, was eliminated in 2015under the Local Control Funding Formula(California Department of Education, 2020).As a result, many high schools found theirtraditional CTE courses without funding. Atabout the same time, research washighlighting the importance of linked learningstandards which lifted up the importance ofpreparing students for both college andcareer through integrated college and careerpathways (Ruiz de Velasco, 2019).

With the support of the Tulare County Officeof Education, La Sierra was able to createnew, integrated pathways that prepared theirgraduates to successfully earn college creditand/or industry-recognized credentials eitherthrough their partnership with West HillsCommunity College or local trade unions. Forexample, La Sierra created a sequence ofcourses aligned with the Culinary Artsprogram at West Hills which facilitatedstudents’ seamless and successful transitionto this program following graduation.Similarly, the Media Arts courses at La Sierrawere integrated with the Graphic DesignAssociate's Degree at West Hills.

La Sierra also offered a Residential andCommercial Construction pathway thataligned with the Carpenter’s Local UnionApprenticeship Pathway. Upon completion oftheir high school CTE pathway, La Sierrastudents were equipped with the knowledge,skills, and habits need to continue theircourses of study, and they receivedpreferential placement in each of thesepostsecondary programs.

Concurrent Coursework inPartnership with Local CommunityCollege While the stated goal of La Sierra was for allstudents to complete their A-G requirementsso that they would be eligible for admissionto a UC or CSU, the vast majority of La Sierra’s graduates begin theirpostsecondary experience at a communitycollege. The West Hills Community CollegeDistrict operates three campuses in thecentral valley, with the closest one, Lemoore,located less than 30 minutes from the La Sierra campus. With support from theTulare County Office of Education, Anjelicawas able to develop an important workingpartnership with West Hills College Lemoore.One of the significant results of thispartnership was the offering of CollegeSuccess (STUDEV 001), a class taught at La Sierra, by La Sierra’s teachers, throughwhich students could earn concurrent creditfrom West Hills College Lemoore. Thiscourse assists students in obtaining skillsand knowledge necessary to reach theireducational, career, and life objectives.

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Topics include orientation to college,motivation, memory development,physiological well-being, study skills andtechniques, career-life planning, financialliteracy, and skills for navigating variouspersonal issues, interpersonal relationshipsand other life challenges that studentsencounter throughout the various stages oftheir lives. This experience allowsstudents to begin to shift their identity fromhigh school student to college student and,more importantly, allows them to leave highschool with college credits and a collegeGPA they can be proud of.

MOVING FORWARD

Reflecting back on some of the earlymoments of their transformation process,Anjelica remembers thinking, "We owe it toour students to continue to think outside thebox. I can’t, on one hand, say to our students‘don’t limit your dreams’ while on the otherhand say to our teachers ‘we can’t do thatbecause that’s not what alternative schoolsdo."

Anjelica anticipated that embarking upon thisjourney would mean breaking out of the moldof the traditional continuation high school.Rhonda acknowledges this as well, noting,“our students didn’t arrive at La Sierrabecause they followed a traditional path. Wecan’t simply provide a traditional educationfor them.”

Along with parents, staff, students, and thesupport of California Education Partners, La Sierra’s principal and teachers moved intothis new space together—a space not neatlydefined by the terms “comprehensive” or“alternative”—but one that invites a new,more collaborative, more learner-centeredresponse of fulfilling our shared responsibilityfor the postsecondary success of eachstudent.

La Sierra has been able to share theirsuccesses and challenges throughout thisjourney. Most notably, in August 2017, the La Sierra staff members were featuredpresenters at the Breaking Barriers:Transforming Education Conference held inVisalia California. At this conference,administrators, counselors, teachers, supportstaff and college faculty were invited to learnabout case studies in California schools thatwere paving the way for transformationalstrategies for building seamless transitionsfor students K-16. Sessions included Anjelicapresenting “Trauma, Poverty and theClassroom: What Every Administrator Needsto Know” and Rhonda presenting “The RawTruth: How to Inspire and Build SuccessfulLeadership Teams from a Teacher’sPerspective.”

While it is key for the team from La Sierra tocontinue to share their story with the largereducational community, what is equallyimportant is the learning that comes frompreparing to tell that story.

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“It’s easy to forget what we did,” Anjelicarecalled when preparing for that presentation."I think we learn as much from the process ofpresenting as those who attend. We don’thave all the answers but hopefully our journeywill inspire other schools.”

Perhaps one of the most inspiring thingsabout La Sierra’s story is that it is still verymuch in process. While the staff at La Sierrashould be very proud of theiraccomplishments over the last 10 years, newchallenges are always on the horizon. Staffand teachers retire, district and countyadministrators change, and as we are allaware, global pandemics prompt suddenand dramatic shifts to teaching and learning.

Even in the midst of all of the challenges that

2020 has presented, La Sierra’s staff are

noticing that they have created a system in

which the students, parents, teachers, staff,

and principal are connected and committed to

the success of their students. They have

developed a shared vision, cultivated

distributed leadership, and nurtured a culture

of collaboration that persists even in a time of

unprecedented uncertainty.

And so, La Sierra’s story will continue. In the

words of one teacher, “we have come too farto start over.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steven Kellner is the Director of ProgramSustainability and Growth at California EducationPartners. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from MiamiUniversity, teaching certification from IndianaUniversity, a Master’s degree in Educationalleadership from Aurora University, and a Doctoratein Educational Administration and Supervision fromLoyola University Chicago where he researched theimpact of superintendent leadership on studentachievement.

PROFILES IN CALIFORNIA ALTERNATIVEEDUCATION

Kristin Geiser & Jorge Ruiz de Velasco, Series Editors

This profile is part of a series created to highlightchallenges, creative policy responses, and exemplarypractices in California’s legislatively created publicalternative high schools. The series is a project of theJohn W. Gardner Center for Youth and TheirCommunities at Stanford University in support of theCalifornia Learning Collaborative on AlternativeEducation. It is intended to invite a new conversationamong educators and policymakers about innovationsto better support the success of youth enrolled in publicalternative secondary schools across the nation. Theseries is funded by generous grants from the William &Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Stuart Foundation.

REFERENCES

Avery, C., & Kane, T. J. (2004). Studentperceptions of college opportunities. In C. H.Hoxby (Ed.) College choices: The economics ofwhere to go, when to go, and how to pay for it (pp.355– 394). Chicago, IL: University of ChicagoPress & NBER.

California Education Partners. (2020, December 9).California Education Partners. caedpartners.org

California Department of Education. (2020,December 1). Local Control Funding FormulaOverview.https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/lc/lcffoverview.asp

California State University. (2020, December 1).California Academic Partnership Program (CAPP).https://www2.calstate.edu/impact-of-the-csu/teachereducation/capp/ Pages/default.aspx

Fehrer, K. (2019). Engaging family, youth,and community members as champions for equityand college and career readiness. In Jorge Ruiz deVelasco (Ed.) Integrated supports for college andcareer readiness in a linked learning approach (pp.47-57). Gandara, P. (2001). Paving the way topostsecondary education: K-12 interventionprograms for underrepresented youth. Washington,DC: National Postsecondary EducationCooperative.

John W. Gardner Center for Youth and theirCommunities. (2020). Report andrecommendations of the California Advisory TaskForce on Alternative Schools. Stanford, CA: JohnW. Gardner Center for Youth and theirCommunities.

McCombs, B.L., & Whisler, J.S. (1997). TheLearner-Centered Classroom and School. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

McLaughlin, M. (2018). You can’t be what you can’tsee: The power of opportunity to change younglives. Harvard Education Press.

Natsiopoulou, E., & Giouroukakis, V. (2010). Whenteachers run the school. Reimagining School,67(7). Ritchie, R., & Woods, P.A. (2007). Degrees ofdistribution: towards an understanding of variationsin the nature of distributed leadership in schools.School Leadership and Management, 27(4) 363-381. Ruiz de Velasco, J. (2019). Introduction. In JorgeRuiz de Velasco (Ed.) Integrated supports forcollege and career readiness in a linked learningapproach (pp. 1-7).

Tulare County Office of Education. (2020,December 1). http://www.tcoe.org

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