Leadership magazine Sept/Oct 2014 V 44 No 1 | Page 18

lic hearing regarding the proposed LCAP,
and a public hearing to adopt the LCAP.

Raising the bar:
• Publicize the timeline: The more people
who are informed about the LCAP process,
the more who will engage. Sacramento City
Unified provided a timeline and an overview of the LCAP development process on
its website.
• Publish the LCAP in advance: Pasadena
Unified published its draft LCAP months
before the hearings, so that community
members would have time to digest the information and respond.

n Accessibility
The bar: If 15 percent or more of the district’s students speak a language other than
English, the district must translate all written notices, reports, statements or records
provided to parents into that language. In
particular, the draft LCAP must be translated.

Raising the bar:
• Provide translation: Professional translation ensures that parents with limited English proficiency can actively engage in meetings. If translation is not simultaneous, then
non-English speakers should receive extra
time for translation.
• Avoid jargon : The LCAP document
should use plain, understandable language
and make clear how expenditures will impact the community. Berkeley Unified’s
LCAP has a glossary of terms.

DISTRICT SPOTLIGHT
Oakland Unified School District
Oakland Unified has
taken major steps toward
shifting the culture of
community engagement.
Although the process is
still a work in progress,
OUSD’s ground-up structures, its partnership with community organizations, and its
willingness to adapt to input provide exciting examples of the hope of LCFF.
18

Leadership

Even before LCFF, OUSD’s school governance policy gave schools control over
budgeting decisions. According to Pecolia
Manigo, program director of Parent Leadership Action Network, “When developing
its LCAP, OUSD made school site teams the
core decision-making bodies and linked
them to district committees. This allowed
school representatives to bring district-wide
strategies to their schools and bubble up
school-level concerns to the district.”
OUSD opened itself up to community
partners as “critical friends.” It invited organizations and district administrators to
participate in the same conversations, which
then allowed community organizers to better support the district.
Katy Nuñez-Adler, the lead education organizer at Oakland Community Organizations, notes, “The passage of LCFF created
an opportunity to align internally across
district departments, between the organizations and districts, and between organizations. That alignment is critical because we
are 49th in the state in per-pupil funding
and we don’t use our