Caring for a Community School Ecosystem: Holistic Site Based Support
By: Mandy McGowen, SFBI Program Manager
The San Francisco Beacon Initiative has always brought a heaping amount of love and care to supporting Beacon leaders. As a backbone organization, we help Beacon community schools thrive through coaching, connecting and coordinating; coaching community school leaders, connecting those leaders to each other to build power, and coordinating learning and resources.
What that looks like on the ground however is more heartfelt than the jargon suggests. When I was a Beacon Director being supported by my coach (now SFBI Executive Director Sally Jenkins-Stevens) not only did she ask critical questions as I developed an annual community feedback process, she also shared resources and advice from her experience being a twin parent after I found out I was pregnant with my own twins. Now that I’m a program manager and coach, I’ve helped set goals, reflect, and identify challenges with Beacon Directors but I’ve also proofread graduate school admissions letters, helped folks work through the next steps in their career, and cried with people through tough times. When SFBI added coaching as a main lever of support to Beacon leaders six years ago, we saw how powerful this connection could be.
However, up until this year we have focused much of our efforts on just one person, the Beacon Director. Thanks to a convergence of events, an evolution in our own understanding of how to best support schools and the start of the Student Success Fund (SSF), we now offer Holistic Site Based Support for all Beacon and Community School Sites in San Francisco. Funded by DCYF as technical assistance for SSF, Holistic Site Based Support opens our focus from just the Beacon Director to look more wholly at the ecosystem of shared leadership at a school. Before we had access to one leader at the door. Now, thanks to the trust we’ve built, they are inviting us in to meet the whole crew.
Mandy facilitating a recent Student Success Fund meeting
What does this look like in practice? At one site, I am coaching the Beacon Director and Community School Coordinator; but I also got to meet with the principal a few times. We realized that although there are close relationships between all leaders, they work in very different ways that can cause conflict. The Beacon Director is a big picture thinker, the principle very practical, and the Community School Coordinator is a true bridge builder but needs other leaders to be on the same page. After speaking with each leader separately, I designed a retreat for them to better understand each other's work styles, their group's expectations of each other, and each team member’s clear roles and responsibilities. Understanding the day to day lives of SFUSD staff, I asked that we have the retreat off-campus and made sure to greet them with delicious food and beverages which they could enjoy sitting down. Bodies were fed and our time was uninterrupted. We started with what was driving all their work individually and what fears and anxieties came along with their responsibilities. Allowing everyone to be vulnerable opened up so much space to look at the work with complete honesty. We examined the different work styles of each member of the group and discussed what authentic expectations would be needed for them to find success as a team. The bulk of the retreat was relationship focused, but in the last hour when we turned to their community school goals, conversations moved more freely and the work came together more quickly.
The very idea of a community school rests upon many leaders working together, so after years of coaching it made sense that supporting just ONE leader at a school is not enough. We now at a minimum coach the Beacon Director and Community School Coordinator but also offer coaching to principals, site coordinators, assistant directors and other key leaders on campus. And although one on ones are incredibly valuable, we understand the power of working as a community too. SFBI continues to offer peer learning communities for Beacon Directors and site coordinators and has added them for community school coordinators and principals. Understanding the nuance of each community school, we have also started developing team retreats, workshops and trainings to meet a school’s specific needs. Finally, we’ve taken the connecting in our work city wide. The 27 Beacon schools have always had a close relationship but now, three times a year, all of the 67 community schools in San Francisco meet to learn from each other, better understand shared challenges, and celebrate all that they’ve accomplished.
Beacon Leaders at the first Student Success Fund meeting
This year’s switch to holistic site based support feels very different in that I am working more closely inside school communities, meeting more of the students and staff, and getting up close and personal with their challenges and successes; but the love and relationship building that is the foundation of this work remains the same.
