ECC Strategic Plan
County
of Los Angeles Education Coordinating Council
Strategic Plan Update 2011-2014
ECC Mission
To raise the educational achievement of children and youth served
by the Department of Children and Family Services and the Probation
Department so that they may have positive futures.
ECC Role and Approach
As noted in the Education Coordinating Council (ECC) Blueprint, Expecting
More, our job is to coordinate efforts across organizations
and jurisdictions, encouraging networks of people to work together
to expand best practices and fill the gaps in communities where
little help is available, to prevent our children from being left
behind. Our primary role is to be a champion of education and
to promote the achievement of youth in the following ways:
- As an advocate, mobilizing support across various public
and private stakeholder groups
- As a convener and broker, working with other
organizations to identify problems and develop solutions
- As a policymaker, spearheading strategies that support
the increased educational achievement of the County’s
youth
Moving forward, we must learn from our prior experiences,
build upon our successes, and focus on the quality and impact of our efforts.
We have always known that “belonging” somewhere and with
someone is especially important to our youth. We now recognize that
this is a foundational piece of our mission. We must make every effort
to create environments that promote youths’ sense of belonging
and enable them to have relationships with people who care about
them and their educational success.
Priority
Areas, Outcomes, and Action Items
Priority Area 1: Early
Childhood Education
Outcome:
At least 90% of young DCFS children under the age of six—and
the children of DCFS and probation youth–-participate in
high-quality early care and education programs.
Examples of actions that would help achieve this outcome:
- Promote the emerging Strengthening Families approach by helping
departments
and organizations incorporate its elements into their work, using
the County’s newly established Youth Self-Sufficiency Countywide
Goal and the Child Care Policy Framework as vehicles to integrate
and align efforts.
- Create policies, procedures, and practices to enroll DCFS children
and the children of current/former system youth in early
care and education programs.
- Support the development and implementation of an electronic referral
system in DCFS regional offices to enroll children in early
care and education programs.
- Help convene trainings—such as early learning symposiums and
caregiver/parent summits—to instill the value of early
education for the County’s most vulnerable children and
to strengthen partnerships between county departments and early
care and education providers.
Priority Area 2: Youth Education and Development
Outcome #1: Educational
programs provided to youth in juvenile halls and camps will be
reformed so that they significantly increase student academic
achievement.
Examples of actions that would help achieve this outcome:
- Help the Comprehensive Education
Reform Committee (CERC) fully implement its educational
reform recommendations.
- Assist in achieving the educational mandates
of the Challenger lawsuit settlement.
- Advocate for camp-to-community
transition strategies that help probation youth access
the resources and supports they need to successfully integrate
into local educational settings that challenge them and
help them rise to the next level of achievement. Encourage
the expansion of successful models, such as the one developed
by the Pomona Unified School District, to other districts.
- Partner with key organizations to convene a juvenile
justice leadership forum to share reform ideas and strategies.
Outcome #2: System youth participate in
after-school and summer enrichment activities that offer
a variety of learning experiences, enhance social/emotional
well-being, and provide opportunities for them to build
positive and enduring relationships with caring
adults.
Examples of actions that would help achieve this outcome:
- Encourage the convening of resource fairs
and other events to inform youth, their caregivers, and
those who work with them about after-school, summer, and
enrichment programs, including academic mentoring/tutoring
opportunities.
- Support
current efforts to establish community school models in
the County that offer youth-enriching educational experiences
during non-school hours.
- Meet with after-school program
providers to identify ways to increase the participation
of system youth in their programs.
- Support the development of trainings
for youth, parents, caregivers, and county and school staff
that highlight the benefits system youth gain by participating
in enrichment activities during non-school hours.
- Partner with LACOE
Foster Youth Services (FYS) to develop and implement its
new strategic plan, which focuses on tutoring, case management,
transition services, and educational advocacy for DCFS
and probation students.
- Promote
the development of youth councils that give system youth
a voice in determining the best ways to enhance their education
and overall well-being.
Outcome #3: DCFS and probation youth successfully
transition to preschool, elementary school, middle school, high
school, adult education, vocational school, and college, and
smoothly transfer between schools.
Examples of actions that would help achieve this outcome:
- Promote transition strategies that increase
schools’ ability
to support system youth, fully include them in their school
communities, and link them to resources that improve their
academic achievement.
- Partner with other organizations to develop convenings and
trainings that equip parents, foster parents, and relative caregivers
with educational advocacy strategies, tools, and resources.
- Encourage the expansion of postsecondary education support programs
that increase youth success and self-sufficiency.
Outcome #4: Prevent/reduce school truancy and
engage truant youth in safe and welcoming educational programs.
Examples of actions that would help achieve this outcome:
- Provide staff support to the Truancy
Task Force created by the Presiding Judge of the Juvenile
Court to identify truancy prevention/reduction efforts
that work, and help promote and coordinate these approaches countywide.
- Through
the Truancy Task Force, School Superintendent Dialogues,
youth councils,
and other vehicles, work with key stakeholders to develop
policies and best practices for increasing school attendance.
Priority Area 3: School/Department Coordination
and Support
Outcome: Departments and schools work in concert
to provide system youth with the education and supports they need
to attain future success.
Examples of actions that would help achieve this outcome:
- Facilitate the expansion of the Gloria
Molina Foster Youth Education Program and similar models that:
- Develop and implement individual, specialized educational plans
for participating students
- Recover credits for youth with multiple school placements
- Support family/caregiver involvement and connections with
caring adults
- Link youth with tutoring and other support services
- Improve the quality of student transitions to postsecondary
education settings
- Monitor the implementation of the school stability recommendations
adopted by the ECC in 2010.
- Promote the incorporation of LACOE FYS staff into DCFS and Probation
case planning meetings.
- Build on existing efforts to integrate
assessments of youths’ educational
progress into the tools, procedures, and policies used by
Juvenile Court bench officers, attorneys, and DCFS and Probation
workers.
- Support youths’ timely enrollment
in schools by:
- Continually updating, disseminating and tracking the effectiveness
of informational tools such as the AB 490 foster youth
letter
- Convening caregiver training
summits
- Distributing current contact lists
- Developing policies and procedures
that quickly identify holders of education rights
- Helping school staff understand and
implement new legislation such as AB 167 and SB 1317
Priority Area 4: Data- and Information-Sharing
Outcome: Share
education information electronically across systems.
Examples of actions that would help achieve this outcome:
- Include language in Delinquency Court
minute orders that allows for the sharing of school district educational records with
probation officers, attorneys, and the Juvenile Court.
- Conduct data matches that track the
enrollment and educational
progress of DCFS and probation youth.
- Facilitate the creation of a mechanism
that can electronically access system youths’ education
records and share these records with eligible users.
- Monitor the implementation of data-sharing efforts among
Los Angeles County school districts, county departments, attorneys,
and the Juvenile Court.
Priority Area 5: System Accountability
Outcome: Courts regularly track and monitor youths’ educational
plans and progress and hold accountable those most responsible
for youths’ increased educational achievement—including
child welfare workers, probation officers, attorneys, caregivers,
parents, school personnel, and the youth themselves.
Examples of actions that would help achieve this outcome:
- Support Juvenile Court–led initiatives and activities that
improve students’ school attendance, participation, and
academic attainment.
- Facilitate efforts to ensure that
every youth has an effective holder of education rights assigned as soon as he or she enters
the system, and that this information is immediately shared
with caseworkers, caregivers, and school staff.
- Develop trainings and tools that help
bench officers ask the most important questions about youths’ school attendance
and achievement and thoroughly assess each youth’s
individual education needs and developmental progress.
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