Isabel Tabares, Community School Coordinator at Gilbert High School in Anaheim, and her team participated in LAEP’s 21CSLA Leadership Collective last school year. Here is what Isabel had to say about her experience.
I’m very thankful for 21CSLA. We’re in year one of implementing our community school. 21CSLA has really helped bring some clarity in moments where we have felt stuck, kind of like, where do we go from now?
Because we’re an alternative ed school, we have high, high rates of chronic absenteeism, and high rates of parent disinvolvement, disengagement. So it is really hard and difficult to sometimes get those voices in the room. But again, through the work with 21CSLA, when we get discouraged, we’re like, this is the work. This is our mission, to bring them back, to reengage them, and to do it in a way that’s equitable, that is fair for them and that is compassionate. Instead of us just kind of being like, ‘Oh, they don’t care. See, they’re not here.’ It’s allowing us to do that deeper dive and ask, ‘Why aren’t they here? What are we doing wrong?’
We have a lot of things that we’re implementing. One of them was a permanent pantry that is providing basic needs like food once a week for our families. So one of the things that I’m working on is how to integrate it back into the school, how to make sure that we train the students so that they run the pantry. How do we make sure that we teach them the skills to help their own communities, to be empowered by it, and then to teach them life skills? They can create a resume and work at a nonprofit or a grocery store out of this, and again all within the comfort of their school.
I like the 21CSLA coaching a lot because as a leader on my campus, sometimes when you are working towards transformative work, it can be a little bit difficult because you’re asking people to think differently, you’re asking people to move differently. Sometimes it can be kind of isolating because not everyone loves change and so you start to question. Then having a coach that I can turn to, that has helped me a lot to continue being a leader and to not get discouraged.
I also do like the group activities when they bring the whole team. It does help us to take us out of our school and to bring us to a different location for us to as a team come together to focus and remember why it is that we do the work and just support each other.
I haven’t experienced something like the 21CSLA coaching and team coaching before. I would describe it as definitely transformative and very out of the box. It’s very different and it’s very supportive. I think in education, it’s so fast paced and there’s so many guidelines and expectations in our positions alone within our districts, that we don’t necessarily get that positive feedback or that positive space where we’re being told, like, ‘Oh, this is actually really good work. Keep at it. You’re doing great,’ and I think that’s where 21CSLA comes in. They remind you that this is the good work.
Check out this video about the pantry Isabel mentioned and their work at Gilbert High School!
LAEP’s 21CSLA Leadership Collective is a one-year program that provides school leadership teams in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Imperial Counties with one-on-one and team coaching, professional learning workshops, and communities of practice. We also offer separate topical professional learning to educational leaders in these counties throughout the school year – all at no cost thanks to the statewide 21CSLA initiative.