ASTA has been leading the charge in Orange County in the successful implementation of community schools. In so doing, ASTA has broken down barriers that existed within Anaheim’s communities of color that kept stakeholders from being active participants in their students’ education.

ASTA has developed a collaborative community school model that has buy-in and participation from educators, district administration, parents and community. The shared decision-making means power is equally distributed in planning, implementation, rollout and coordination to better serve students.

ASTA has also used this model to develop leadership opportunities within their membership by creating school leads at each site to help carry out the ideals and principles of community schools in the classroom.

ASTA members and leaders’ community school work allows the chapter to highlight the needs of all schools in the district and to put a system in place where the appropriate resources and tools can be dispatched where they are truly needed.

In addition, ASTA has been a strong advocate for human and civil rights. Among other examples, as a union ASTA has created better access to leadership opportunities for teachers of color; created social justice committees; and promoted their members’ involvement in CTA’s Ethnic Minority Early Identification & Development program.

Pictured above: ASTA’s Community School Teacher Leads and the ASTA Organizer. Watch the ASTA short video here. Read about the other Human Rights Award winners here.