Learning Communities for School Success Program (LCSSP)

Grants to California K-12 school districts, charter schools, and county offices of education for programs to reduce school absenteeisim and dropout rates. An Intent to Submit must be submitted prior to the full proposal. Funding is intended to support activities that keep at-risk students in school such as attendance improvement programs, restorative practices to reduce suspensions, social-emotional teaching, trauma-informed strategies, and coordinated community family, health, and developmental services rendered on school premises.

The goals of the LCSSP are to support evidence-based, non-punitive programs and practices aimed at keeping the state’s most vulnerable pupils in school. These programs and practices must complement and enhance the actions and services identified to meet the LEA’s goals as provided in their LCAP.

The LCSSP allows for a wide variety of programs and strategies to address the needs of vulnerable students. Statutory language identifies several allowable programs, including, but not limited to:

• Establish/support community schools that participate in community-based efforts to coordinate and integrate educational, developmental, family, health, and other comprehensive services at a school site to pupils, families, and community members (EC sections 33432[a][1] and 33435[a]).
• Implement programs and activities to improve attendance and reduce chronic absenteeism.
• Implement restorative practices to improve retention rates, reduce suspensions and other school removals, and reduce the referral of pupils to law enforcement agencies.
• Implement activities that advance social-emotional learning, Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), culturally responsive practices, and trauma-informed strategies.
• Establish partnerships with community-based organizations to support the implementation of evidence-based, non-punitive practices that further the goals of keeping the state’s most vulnerable students in school.
• Increase staffing within a LEA whose primary purpose is addressing ongoing chronic attendance problems.

School-based, community-based, or public and private partnerships providing direct or Multi-tiered System of Supports (MTSS) such as those described above, which provide prevention, early intervention, and intensive intervention, may be funded through the LCSSP grant. Programs and strategies supported by the LCSSP grant must address the needs and challenges experienced by students of any age who are at risk of chronic absenteeism, habitual truancy, or dropping out of school.

For examples of allowable programs see page 4 of the guidelines in the Supporting Documents section below.

The LCSSP grant may be used for the expansion of a LEA-wide program or a program designed to address the needs of a limited number of schools with a high percentage of at-risk students. The proposed program may provide support for an existing regional program involving LEAs that have formed a consortium to address a particular challenge. Whatever the scope and strategies of the proposed grant, it must support existing LEA efforts identified in the LEA’s current LCAP or in the current LCAP of each LEA within a consortium that is applying for a LCSSP grant.

Program outcomes in the LCSSP application can target and include, but are not limited to:

• Improvement in pupil engagement.
• Improvement in school climate.
• Expansion or maintenance of evidence-based, non-punitive practices.