The Uncertain Future of San Diego Unified’s Community Schools (NOT Education Facilities)

I bet you thought that government school district was about education?  Actually, many have given up education as the priority and turned themselves into social welfare agencies for the community—and using school property to run the taxpayer financed charity.

“When Chollas-Mead returned to in-person instruction, the impact was noticeable. The school felt more like a family, Hunter-Clark said. Staff also worked to make sure the community knew they could still reach out to them when they needed help. 

And they did.  

Families approached the school for all kinds of things – legal help, food support and help getting jobs. Staff set up walking groups for kids whose families didn’t have a car to drive them to school. They even helped formerly unhoused families get furniture for their new homes.  

The work was rewarding, but it became too much for staff at one school to handle.  

“There were so many different needs, and I kept imagining, how do we meet all these needs where it’s not impacting us all the time?” Hunter-Clark said. 

That’s when she found out about a new statewide community schools program. Community schools are schools that offer additional support and resources to the students and families they serve. Hunter-Clark approached her staff and they were enthusiastic, so she applied. 

San Diego has 25 of these non educational facilities.  They are also running a deficit.  Maybe Trump can stop the Feds from funding these non-schools.  Many districts have them—the general public has not notice that education is no longer a priority for government schools.

The Progress Report: The Uncertain Future of San Diego Unified’s Community Schools

by Jakob McWhinney, Voice of San Diego,   2/28/25     https://voiceofsandiego.org/2025/02/28/the-progress-report-the-uncertain-future-of-san-diego-unifieds-community-schools/

When the pandemic forced schools to turn to virtual learning, Chollas Mead Elementary educators knew they had to find a way to maintain their connection with families.  

Staff members kept in touch with families and visited homes to drop off schoolwork and food. Chollas Mead Elementary Principal Kristi Hunter-Clark told me they continually asked themselves how they could support the community they serve.  

“That peeled back a lot of the layers of the onion and showed parents ‘hey, we do care, we just sometimes don’t know how to show up,’” Hunter-Clark said.   

The outreach to families also served as a learning opportunity for teachers. 

“My teachers were like, ‘we need to care more, and we need to be more empathetic, and we need to involve our families and our parents, because we need to really hold them tight,’” she said. 

When Chollas-Mead returned to in-person instruction, the impact was noticeable. The school felt more like a family, Hunter-Clark said. Staff also worked to make sure the community knew they could still reach out to them when they needed help. 

And they did.  

Families approached the school for all kinds of things – legal help, food support and help getting jobs. Staff set up walking groups for kids whose families didn’t have a car to drive them to school. They even helped formerly unhoused families get furniture for their new homes.  

The work was rewarding, but it became too much for staff at one school to handle.  

“There were so many different needs, and I kept imagining, how do we meet all these needs where it’s not impacting us all the time?” Hunter-Clark said. 

That’s when she found out about a new statewide community schools program. Community schools are schools that offer additional support and resources to the students and families they serve. Hunter-Clark approached her staff and they were enthusiastic, so she applied. 

The state approved their application in August of 2023 and with that, Chollas-Mead became one of San Diego Unified’s 25 official community schools. The designation carries with it a hefty state grant that helps offset much of the cost of the program, though districts are required to chip in.  

But with the grants sunsetting in coming years and San Diego Unified facing a budget crisis, district leaders will have to decide if they want to spend limited resources to pick up the cost of keeping community schools around. 

‘This Place Has Gotten Very Kind and Calm’ 

Community schools strategies first showed up more than 100 years ago but they’ve come back in recent years. In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a more than $4 billion California community schools program, kicking open the door to their development up and down the state. That funding is what allowed schools like Chollas-Mead to get their programs off the ground. 

Research has shown the strategy can have a big impact on students, especially the most disadvantaged, and can help break down the socioeconomic barriers that have led to the achievement gaps that have plagued education for generations. For a school like Chollas-Mead, 90 percent of whose students qualify for free and reduced priced meals, and 41 percent of whom are English language learners, there are no shortage of barriers. 

The first step of any community school rollout is an assessment of what the community needs and which organizations can provide services. This step is vital because each community schools’ offerings should be tailored to the needs of the community. Some schools may provide dental or vision care, or even workshops for parents. 

When it came to Chollas-Mead, parents said they wanted more academic support for their kids, like help with their homework, and greater communication between parents and teachers. Karina Pina-Armas, Chollas-Mead’s community schools coordinator, said both families and students also wanted more after-school activities, like sports and tutoring.  

In the year and a half since she took on the role, Pina-Armas has implemented a slew of changes. Some are resource based. For example, the school now has a designated room for its community schools program stocked with canned food, cleaning supplies, backpacks, clothes, tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of free books and more. 

Other changes, however, are programmatic. The school leveraged its community schools grant to obtain an additional grant that brought a full-time social worker to Chollas Mead who works with parents and students alike.  

On a recent tour of the campus, I passed a student volunteer from the private school Francis Parker reading to kindergartners in one classroom. On a field adjacent to the school’s playground, I saw a coach leading kids through soccer practice. Neither of these programs were around before Chollas-Mead’s community schools designation. 

Other changes are a mixture of both. Just past the classroom with that student volunteer was Chollas-Mead’s new community garden, launched with the help of a donation from the nonprofit Rebuilding SD Together.  

John Mooney, who works with Chollas-Mead students receiving special education services, said the garden has provided a whole host of benefits. It’s a place where kids with sensory issues can get a moment of peace and quiet and has encouraged them to put their time and energy into learning about everything from nutrition to plants. Kids also frequently take home fresh produce from the garden. Earlier that day, some students left with bags of tomatoes. 

“Two years ago, the kids had no sports to play in, no teams or social clubs to join, certainly no garden to learn about. And now, here we are, and things are flourishing,” Mooney said. “The kids are choosing to learn and choosing to be here after school so they can participate in these extracurricular activities. I’ve noticed the climate and the culture of this place has gotten very kind and calm.” 

‘Your Whole Life Can Change’ 

To be a real hub of a community, schools can’t just focus on kids – they have to go the extra mile for the whole family. Chollas-Mead has begun to do that. The community schools space now hosts English classes for parents who are English language learners and even resume building workshops.  

To Pina-Armas, the potential impact of school staff going above and beyond isn’t theoretical. When she was young, her family dealt with poverty and her mother was trapped in an abusive relationship. 

 “People thought like I was shy and reserved, but in reality, we didn’t have money for toothpaste or deodorant,” Pina-Armas said. “It was my third-grade teacher that saw the red flags.” 

That teacher connected her mom to the services that helped her escape the relationship. She even helped her learn to drive. Her mother later became a social worker, all thanks to the transformation put in motion. 

“That’s why I tell people, when you allow yourself to be supported and connected, your whole life can change. It really did happen for myself, and it happened for my mom, but it wouldn’t have if nobody took the time to really build the system, build their resources and take the extra step,” she said. 

For Brenda Luevano, a mother of three Chollas-Mead students, the program has had a similarly transformational impact. 

Since the birth of her kids, Luevano has worked as a homemaker. It was really fulfilling work, but she’d always wanted to get more involved at her kids’ school, it just didn’t feel like there were easy ways to do so. That changed when Pina-Armas came on board and created a volunteer system for parents.  

Soon, Luevano was on campus all the time. She would attend parent meetings, help fix up the community schools space and plan events. 

“This little group was making really powerful changes,” Luevano said. “That’s when I realized that they were paying attention and my voice matters.” 

The work was especially meaningful because she remembered how her own mother worked too often to get involved at her school. The work she was doing now felt like she was making positive changes for all the parents like her mother, who were unable to volunteer themselves. 

But as Luevano got more involved, she said Pina-Armas began pushing her in other ways. Since she was in high school, Luevano had wanted to be a preschool teacher, but that dream took a backseat to raising kids. But Pina-Armas encouraged her to give it a go. 

“She saw something in me that I hadn’t seen, which was kind of mind blowing. She was like, ‘girl, you’re a leader. You know how to do this. You’re a natural,’” Luevano said. 

Pina-Armas helped Luevano build a resume and eventually she got a job at Chollas-Mead as a paraeducator, someone who provides support to credentialed teachers.  

“When I started to work here, it felt like, ‘Oh, my God. I’m meant to do this,’” Luevano said. 

Pina-Armas took the extra step of encouraging Luevano to go back to school. She was skeptical. She’d never considered going back to college and at first she was skeptical. But eventually she made the leap, and Luevano is now in her second semester at San Diego City College, working toward a program to get her teaching credential. None of this, Luevano said, would have happened had she not gotten the push from her involvement in the community schools program – and Pina-Armas. 

“It was really a blessing that community schools came along … I feel like my purpose is being fulfilled all because a person took a chance on me,” Luevano said. 

‘Zero-Sum Decisions’ 

Jason Babineau is the senior director of the district’s entire community schools program, and he speaks about the strategy with an almost religious conviction. 

“We’ve been trying for decades, generations, centuries, to find ways to address equity gaps. We are all looking for the answer. This is a strategy that I wholeheartedly believe in that, if done correctly, if done authentically, if done with fidelity, is going to shift student outcomes over time,” Babineau said, his hand cutting through the air.  

That “over time,” part is important because community schools work doesn’t happen overnight. Needs assessments and finding new community partners and culture shifts take time – but time is something the program may not have much of. The majority of the funding for the program comes from state grants that will end in coming years, leaving San Diego Unified leaders to decide if they want to foot the bill.  

“We are not naive to the fact that we have grant dollars and that these grants sunset,” Babineau said. “But if we can provide data that the coordinator position is providing immense value, if we can show our process and how it’s shifting student outcomes, how can this strategy not be supported?” 

And Babineau has numbers to back up the purported value. Over the past school year, for example, Pina-Armas has brought in around $236,000 in in-kind donations, which includes stuff like donated food, the value of English instruction for parents and group therapy sessions. That sum more than eclipses Pina-Armas’ yearly pay. 

San Diego Unified Board President Cody Petterson talks often about the myriad socioeconomic factors pressing down on students. Schools, which play such a large role in families’ lives, are well suited to trying to tackle some of those factors, and he’s confident the district is willing to do so. 

“In terms of trying to leverage that access we have to students and families to sort of attack the exogenous factors that are impacting student achievement, I think we’re still committed to doing that,” Petterson said. 

During his time on the board, the district has leaned into the community schools program. In addition to the 25 community schools already up and running, the district is adding 10 more next year. But that trend of expansion runs counter to the fiscal contraction the district is grappling with. Even after tens of millions in cuts, leaders are still facing a more than $110 million budget deficit.  

Petterson said the district also plans to shift more of the funding for the positions to the grants. But that’s only a short-term solution. Given the environment of scarcity, Petterson said one of the key goals long-term needs to be figuring out how to secure more funding for districts overall, so cuts don’t have to keep happening. 

He wouldn’t say whether programs like community schools – and the staff that work for them, like Pina-Armas – would get the axe if no extra funding materialized. But “there will be a scenario in which we have to make zero-sum decisions. And we would really like to not have to make those zero-sum decisions,” Petterson said.  

Because the community schools program is geared toward schools that serve students with the highest needs, any post-grant funding cuts would inevitably have a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable. 

In an email, district spokesperson Susan Shamoon wrote the “district is committed to supporting our community schools model through the use of state implementation grant-funds.” She did not mention what that meant for the district’s share of the cost, or what they would do when those grants ran out. 

Superintendent Fabiola Bagula also lauded the work community schools is doing, writing “Community schools are a beacon of light for our students. They provide wrap around services and access to resources, while unifying our community partners together in support of our school communities. This is what we aspire for all our schools in San Diego Unified, whether or not they are designated as community schools.” 

Hunter-Clark, the Chollas-Mead principal, is preparing for the worst. She feels the school has become a true hub of the community, but she knows she can’t necessarily rely on funding to continue, regardless of the gardens and after-school sports and parent English lessons. Her goal is to ensure the partnerships that were built and the resources secured and the connection to families ushered in over the past couple years continue even if the funding disappears entirely.  

But to do that, they need to continue to earn the trust and buy-in of the community, by demonstrating the value of programs like this.  

“The community deserves results. If the community gets to see we’re really working for them and their child, they’ll want to be a part of that,” Hunter-Clark said. “They’ll say ‘how do we all wrap around and make sure that we’re growing as a community together.’”