Introduction to Community Schools with Dr. Eboni Kemp SBCSS Community Schools Manager

Joanna Marrufo hosts the first episode of Beyond Academics: Connecting Classroom & Community, featuring Dr. Eboni Kemp, Community Schools Program Manager. Dr. Kemp shares her journey from working in juvenile delinquency to becoming an educator, focusing on at-risk students. She explains the concept of community schools as comprehensive educational hubs that remove barriers to learning by integrating services, programs, and resources for academics, mental health, and physical health. Dr. Kemp emphasizes the importance of community partnerships and localized solutions. She advises schools to listen to students and parents, foster social-emotional learning, and be patient, as community schools require long-term commitment.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Eboni Kemp, Joanna Marrufo

Joanna Marrufo  00:10

Hi everyone. I'm Joanna Marrufo. Welcome to Beyond the blackboard, the Community Schools podcast where we dive deep into the world of community schools and explore how they're transforming education for students, families and communities. I'm the integrated supports outreach specialist with San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, and in our first episode, we're thrilled to welcome Dr Eboni Kemp Community Schools manager. Dr Kemp is a former educational administrator working in elementary and post secondary education, and is now serving as a regional leading expert and manager in community schools for the southern Inland Regional Technical Assistance Center. On today's episode, she will share her insights on the unique role community schools play in fostering not just academic success, but also comprehensive support for students, teachers and administrators. Thank you so much for being here on the first episode of beyond the blackboard. Ebony. I want the audience to get to know you a little bit more and hear more about your experiences and how they've shaped the role that you play in education. And I know you have a lot of experience working in education, serving in many roles, so I'd like to hear more, a little bit about you and how what brought you into education. 

Eboni Kemp  01:37

Well first of all, thank you for having me on the podcast today. I feel honored and privileged to be here to share my experiences and hoping that it connects dots for others as we're working to transform our schools to community schools. So just a little background about myself. I did not originally go into the field of education. Actually, I started off working in the area of juvenile delinquency, where I actually was working in foster care homes and transition homes for students, or I want to say male, ages 16 to 18, that were experiencing issues in school. So they ended up either in a transition home or they came from a boot camp or juvenile hall. So I worked in a lot of those transition homes, which were the place they would go before they were brought back together with their families, and working a lot through that made me realize that I didn't want to be at the tail end where we're being more reactive instead of proactive. So that's when I decided to actually go into education. My experience with that took where my heart was at to a different level. I could feel the pain of the students that I was working with, excuse me, the males that I was working with on how they felt like they didn't receive enough support. They didn't feel like their family was hearing their problems that they were dealing with, which led them to look for outside extended family, which became gangs and getting into cliques and groups that were doing things that were not the best things to do. So they ended up either in a boot camp or juvenile hall or in this transition facility where it was basically locked. They went to school on that campus, and they didn't get to see really the outside world, so they had a lot of pent up anger, and I remember being in a session where a student broke down and chairs were thrown across the floor, and just to feel the level of pain made me realize that I needed to go in the field of education so I can assist with helping our sweethearts before they even get to that level. So in that experience, I started off my teaching career in LA. I taught elementary school, middle school, I tend to always ask, could I have the students that people gave up on so I didn't have the class where I had all the gifted students? I always wanted the students that people didn't have faith in, that people kind of gave up on, that people considered their behavior problems. They're not going to learn anything. So I said, those are the students I want. So you can take my gate kids, you can take my high achievers, give me the students that need me. So throughout my whole educational career, those are the students I had in my classroom. So from elementary going to middle school, eventually becoming a dean of student discipline, where I was able to work on certain programs that actually took the students that no one want to deal with and taking them to character camps and leadership camps, where they were able to build their skills to know that there's life beyond these decisions that they're making and that they needed to start. Making better choices. They needed someone who believed in them. So being in those roles led to me becoming an assistant principal, a principal coming to San Bernardino County, superintendent of schools, as a community schools coordinator, and now transitioned into the position I have now, which is the Community Schools Program Manager. 

Joanna Marrufo  05:20

Thank You so much for sharing a little bit about how your background really informed. Gives a lens to community schools, because what we're doing is really kind of bridging that gap for community members to access resources and the lens that you bring with that rich knowledge of, you know, knowing what students are facing, you know, out in the classrooms after school, because you have so much lived experience with working with those students that often times are like the most vulnerable. And so I'm really happy that, you know, you bring that equity lens, and really are able to connect our schools with with that lens. So do you mind sharing a little bit more of what is a community school and who is engaged in the process of creating a community school?

Eboni Kemp  06:08

So I like to bring a simple meeting. We have so many textbook meetings and presentation meetings across but I'm just going to break it down real simple. Imagine a school where it's a one stop shop for students, that any service, any intervention, any kind of program that you can offer, will remove all the barriers so that students can access teaching and learn. That's basically the foundation of community schools. We want to work to transform our schools to be places where not only where students can receive academics, but they can also receive the services, the resources, and get into programs that remove those barriers that may be preventing them from being successful in the classroom. So community schools not only focus on the academics, they're also focusing on building partnerships through local organizations, any organization that is willing to work with them to provide these services, programs and resources for the students and families on campus. And all of these services programs resources are all based around academics, mental health, physical health, and just basically family and community engagement. The biggest thing about a community school is not about working in silo. It's about working with our students. We're hearing what they need, hearing what our families need, hearing what the community members can offer to the school to take it to the next level. And all parties coming together, the educators, teachers, staff members, parents, families, guardians, community members, community partners, coming to one table to say, Hey, this is what we need for this school. And what are those services, those programs, those resources, those strengths that we can offer to transform our school into a community hub, so the parents don't have to depend on going outside of the school environment to find what they need for their sweethearts. We're able to have that on campus, which not only builds a connection for our families and students with the actual campus the school site they're at, but it also allows the school site to be self sufficient, to be able to support the needs of their students and the families, and it allows students to be at school more most of the time when our sweethearts are missing school, to go to a medical appointment because their parent goes to a clinic that may be only open one Part of the month, and they only offer so many days that they don't have that opportunity to be flexible with when their child has a medical appointment, a dental appointment, optometry appointment, they have to take what's needed. So they miss school. And when a student miss school, they miss hours and hours of learning where it seems like one day can be multiple days, because the child has to come back to school, get back on track, figure out what was learned yesterday, and still learn what's going on today. And it can just lead to a trickle of being behind, which adds to the chronic absenteeism problems that we have in schools, because parents are doing the best they can with being able to get these services and resources for their kids so they take what's offered, but if we can bring that to the school site, it allows our sweethearts to be in school and not have to miss those important days, and allows them to stay connected to the school site, and they'll feel motivated and engaged while they're at school. 

Joanna Marrufo  09:38

Yeah I love the concept of community schools, because what it's doing is it's really eliminating that transportation barrier, building that trust and like what you said, just really allowing students to have the opportunity to have more time time in the classroom, because it really connects them with the community. Be on their on their campus, and I'm just really excited for all the great things that we're working on as the as a sur tech. So I kind of want to transition this next question. So sir tech is the Southern Inland Regional Technical Assistance Center, and I wanted to kind of dive a little deeper in our role as sur tech in the region, and how the county of San Bernardino, superintendent of schools, is making it easier for schools to be a part of this movement, be a part of creating that culture shift. 

Eboni Kemp  10:36

Okay so first, I gotta give everyone background on what is a regional technical assistance center. So let's go back to the beginning. So the state of California received approximately $4.1 billion for community schools. With that money, they developed what's called the California Community Schools Partnership Program. Through that program, they offered implementation grants for schools that were interested in becoming community schools based on the size of their school. Through that program, in order to support the process of developing community schools, they came up with regions to support that process, which is called the regional technical assistance center. So in San Bernardino, We are the lead for our regional Technical Assistance Center. And we support four counties, San Bernardino, Riverside, Inyo and mono. And a big part of our job is, number one, to be able to support the schools as there are transforming their schools into community schools, so making sure that they're using those best known evidence based practices to ensure that the proper services, programs and resources are being put on their campus to become a community school. Secondly, we are making sure that the grant money that's being received is being spent fiscally responsible, and that they're being put towards a project that is going to assist with their school becoming a community school. So we help with Grant oversight, but we also help with the development of becoming a community school. So what does this look like? We do presentations, basically providing grantees and non grantees with basic knowledge on what a community school is, what are the main areas that community schools focus on, which are basically integrated, student support, family, community engagement, collaborative leadership and expanded learning. Time and opportunities are the four focus areas. So based on the needs of their school, each school conducts a needs and assets assessment, where they determine what are the strengths of their school, what are the needs of their school, and based on the needs of the school as they are attending the professional learning that's being conducted by the Southern Inland Regional Technical Assistance Center. They decide what practices that they're going to take back to their district. The district decides what practices should go down to the schools, and the schools utilize those practices to help build their community schools. So as a regional Technical Assistance Center, we support all of that, we are making sure that, if they need help, strategies, ideas with how to increase family, community engagement, what direction they should go on go in in regards to what student supports they should put on campus, what are good extended learning opportunities for their campus based on the needs, how should collaborative leadership look on their campus? And the best thing about a community school is everything is localized. So if you've seen one community school, you've only seen one community school, each community school looks different because each community and neighborhood is different. So if you're doing community schools right, then your community school is going to look drastically different from the community school down the street, because the needs of the students and the families are different. So that is everything we support with it is a lot. It's also a learning process, because this program has only been around for about three to four years now. So not only are we learning together, we are also learning from other schools that have already gone through this process and having those conversations and discussions with them on things that we can do to put things in place to ensure that our students are learning at the end of the day.

Joanna Marrufo  14:39

Thank you so much for explaining that to everyone, and we're so thrilled to really engage everyone, right, whether you're a parent, whether you're a student, whether you're a teacher, whether you're a community business owner. You know, there's so many assets in each community that everyone can come together and really. Really drive kind of like this initiative forward. And I love that you said that every school is a different, you know, depending on the needs that are exist in the neighborhood. So I love that you shared that, like every every priority is different in in the community. So, so yeah, we're really excited to continue those these conversations and bring the best practices on this podcast so that people can really learn from people who are really excited and engaged doing it in their neighborhood. So one last question for you, what advice would you give to the listener who's interested in cultivating a community school on their campus.

Eboni Kemp  15:43

I have a lot of advice, but I'll give of I'll give it in brief. Community Schools is heart work, not hard work, which means that when you're building a community school, you're building it from the heart, because you want to make sure that you're truly doing everything you can for students and families on campus. If I have to give any words of advice to schools that are thinking about going to be in a route of becoming a community school, listen to the voices of your students, no matter if they're elementary, middle school, high school. Most of the time, we make the mistake and say, Oh, our high school and our middle school students can articulate how they feel and what they want. So can our elementary school kids. You just have to take the time to listen, and kids voices are important because they're going to help you mold what you need at the school and what they'll be engaged in. The last thing we need is our students disconnected from the classroom, so in order to make sure they're engaged, we need to hear their voice and what they bring to the table, and not always celebrate A's and perfect attendance, but we need to celebrate their strengths, to encourage them and to build them up and to take them where they're at. Our parents bring to the school the best they have and everything they've done for their sweethearts. And there's no one. There's no perfect parent. We're not going to get the student that just has it all when they come to school, and parents are depending on us to help them. We're educators. We're there for the love of educating students, and that's a big part of community. Schools. You have to be in it for the love of students. For families that are afraid to get involved because they feel like their voice has not been heard, keep speaking and being loud until somebody actually hears your voice. You are just an important part of campus as your students families schools need you. They want you there. Educators are not perfect. Administrators are not perfect. We are not perfect, and sometimes it takes those difficult conversations to break down the walls to ensure that we're communicating with each other, we're on the same page, but we need you in the schools. For educators, this is a different way of doing school. We've been given a script. We've been given prescription minutes. We've been told we have to do 45 minutes of ELA, 60 minutes of math, and all at the same time, we have to make sure that we are climbing and getting the best results on our California dashboard those skills that our students need for literacy and math, they're very, very important. But also what's important is making sure that our students are good human beings, making sure that we're building their social emotional intelligence, that they understand how to be aware of how they feel, and that they can regulate their emotions, being aware, socially aware, and being able to build relationships with other people, and at the end of the day, that will How can, I say, assist with their decision making as they're going through school? So it's a lot more to school than just academics. We really need to make sure that we're making sure that our students are number one physically well, we need to make sure that they're mentally well, because without them being physically and mentally well, there's no way that they can access the learning that's being provided in the schools. And we have a lot of educators that are out there doing great things and great work, and I think sometimes that the exhaustion that they go through comes from them beating themselves up because they want to be at the top of the game. And sometimes it's hard when we have students that are struggling, but there's a lot of educators out there doing great work, and I do want to say that, but we do have a small group that needs to shift that mindset and really get on board and realize that the students that we are building right now are what's going to run our country and what's going to take care of us in years to come. So we need to make sure that we're building the best human beings as possible so they can take care of us and we can relax when we're ready to retire and be old and not have to do anything. So my last word of advice. Case would be that this is not work that you can do in a year. This is not something that can happen in two years. The best community schools that exist right now have been doing the work before the grant. They've been doing the work for at least five to seven years, and they're just now seeing the results after five to seven years of work. So take your time celebrate the small successes and know that any school can be a community school at the end of the day is about the heart that you put into it and that making sure that you're really there for our student and families.

Joanna Marrufo  20:33

Thank You so much. Dr, Eboni Kemp, your passion for education, your passion for just being a source of light for all the people that really want to make a difference is just felt today, and I'm just so happy and excited to continue doing this work with that. I want to welcome everyone to check out the SIRTAC website on our show notes for more information on upcoming workshops and events, to get involved and learn more. Thank you for joining us at beyond the blackboard, where we dive deep into the stories from people who are making a difference in schools. They are the change makers who bring community schools to life by making an impact for families and children by meeting their needs. Don't forget to connect with us on our social media accounts. You can find us on x, @si_rtac, on our Instagram, at sbcss_iebranch, or at our website ccsppsirtac.org, tune in for more episodes.