Narr: Coming up on Inside California Education: In sports and in life, it's often all about winning and losing.

But there's an effort underway in California schools to focus on something equally important: good sportsmanship.

Discover how these San Diego schools are teaching sportsmanship as a way of reducing conflict and promoting friendly competition.

Ava: We try to keep it positive all the time.

We like to do positive chants.

So, if someone in the crowd is trying to do a negative chant, we like to overpower it with something like, we love football or we love basketball.

Narr: How do you combat racism and misunderstanding in the classroom?

One way may be by helping teachers see students in a new light.

That's why teachers and administrators in this Central Valley district are taking part in a comprehensive effort called “student champions.

” Todd: There's nothing like it that we know of in the state of California and probably beyond.

Jeremiah: I'm just really glad I was able to take something that was so negative at the time and now see that it's like helping something beautiful blossom.

Narr: Public schools as centers for community service?

It's already happening in districts like this one in Orange County.

See how this high school started an on-campus farm to provide fresh produce to students and surrounding neighborhoods.

It's all part of an ambitious, state funded initiative.

Monty: So, every month we have this thing called the community dinner.

So, anyone in the community can come to our school.

They could, they could buy our produce, they could taste our produce.

♪♪♪ Narr: And, she provides oversight and support for over 80 districts and more than 2 million students.

Meet Dr. Debra Duardo, and discover her journey starting as a child of farmworker parents all the way to becoming superintendent of L.A. County schools.

It's all coming up next on Inside California Education.

Annc: Funding for Inside California Education is made possible by: The California lottery has been reliably raising additional money for public education for decades.

More than $41 billion since voters created the lottery in 1984.

And thats the reason why California lottery exists.

Its why we do what we do and work so hard to do it.

Thank you, California.

Our schools appreciate your support.

Annc: Imagine a credit union where school employees are treated like the heroes you are.

At SchoolFirst Federal Credit Union, everything we do starts with helping school employees and their families live better today and plan for tomorrow.

Learn more at schoolsfirstfcu.org.

Annc: The Stuart Foundation: improving life outcomes for young people through education.

ScholarShare 529: Californias state-sponsored, tax-advantaged 529 college savings plan designed to help pay for the cost of higher education.

Additional funding for Inside California Education is made possible by these organizations supporting public education.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Narr: Sports is supposed to be about friendly competition, and high schools have long promoted the importance of sportsmanship.

But here in the San Diego area, unfortunate altercations on the field and sometimes in the stands is inspiring a renewed and conscious effort to re-instill a spirit of sportsmanship among high school athletes.

The goal is to offer a refreshing alternative to the prevalent misconduct that often makes headlines.

Todd Cassen is the assistant commissioner for the San Diego section of CIF or California Interscholastic Federation.

He helped bring a program that promotes good sportsmanship to the Poway Unified School District.

It's called Battle of the Fans.

Todd: It's really about bringing your schools together to support what's happening on the, on the court or the field in a positive way where schools can actually, you know, get their students excited about really competing with other schools to say, “Who's got the best student section?

” So, it's really how much fun can you have in a student section.

Narr: Battle of the Fans is a friendly competition among student sections to determine the most spirited or most supportive student section in high schools across the Poway Unified School District.

Mount Carmel High School is one of the high schools that participates in Battle of the Fans.

Todd: Mount Carmel has an outstanding reputation.

It's one of the schools that when you walk on the campus and I think this is true for any campus, you really feel a culture.

Narr: Mount Carmel Student Section is known officially as the Red Sea.

Sanford: When we started the Red Sea, things, things changed and, and kids have bought it and they really like it and they really enjoy it.

And it's fun.

The very first game, I think this year we had over a thousand students in a student body of 1,850.

That's pretty darn good.

Charlie: We're here to, you know, give... give everyone a, a place to be loud and have fun while at the same time we respect everyone that's on the field.

Tanner: When you're cheering and stuff and when you're playing, you're playing for your school and you're not- it's not playing to beat the other team.

It's not playing to like, beat down or demoralize anyone else.

It's playing for like, something bigger than yourself.

Playing for Mount Carmel and having pride in that.

Narr: Battle of the Fans is actually a nationwide phenomenon sparked by need by schools across the U.S. to turn all that fan energy in a positive direction.

Districts in Michigan, Utah, Connecticut, and many other states have implemented the idea with good results.

At Mount Carmel, they've appeared to have discovered the formula for cultivating good sportsmanship.

The high school has emerged victorious in San Diego's Battle of the Fans for three consecutive years.

Allie: We made a shirt out of it because it's something that, like I said, our community is so incredibly proud of.

I think that everyone's so happy to be a Sun Devil here, and it- it's reflected through our student section.

Sanford: It is the Sun devil way.

It's more than just words.

It's, it's a, it's a lifestyle.

It's what we do.

And we try and provide kind of an example for other schools.

Todd: They're seeing a model of maybe we shouldn't be so negative.

Maybe we- maybe our chants you know, maybe that's not helping our team.

You know, you look at pro sports, what do you see online right now?

Fights, yelling, you know, screaming, going after the officials, going after the players.

And I think what you see other schools after they look at what Mount Carmel and other schools like Carlsbad, San Marcos, Scripps Ranch, these schools that really focus on trying to make it a positive, they start to see there's another way to do it and start to say, “Wait a second we can have a lot of fun and still be positive, still have that word respect and honor, you know, really mean something as, as we support what's happening out on the field or court.

” Charlie: If you're, um, kind of negatively affecting either an athlete, you're there to support or the opposing team, it's like- and you're kind of the reason why they're having a bad game.

It's like you really have to question what you're doing because it's like, that person has dedicated, uh, a lot of time to be there.

Ava: We try to keep it positive all the time.

We like to do positive chants.

So, if someone in the crowd is trying to do a negative chant, we like to overpower it with something like, “We love football ” or “we love basketball.

” Narr: For the students, it's not just about learning how to promote good sportsmanship at their school, they've discovered another unexpected benefit.

It's provided many of them with memories they will cherish well beyond graduation.

Ava: It's really sad that it's coming to an end, but it's been the greatest experience I've ever had.

Tanner: I think I'm going to take so much from this school and kind of take what I've learned here and take all that positivity and bring it to wherever I'm going.

[students cheering] [students cheering] -Lets go!

[students cheering] -Come on!

[students cheering] ♪♪♪ Todd: Rather than seeing them for what they don't have looking at their lives through a loss frame, we want to look at their lives through a gain frame.

Narr: Every one of Madera Unified School District's 2,500 employees attends a unique training program called the Student Champion Course.

Todd: The goal of this curriculum is for our teachers to understand how incredibly important it is to be human first, to really understand who kids are, know their names, know their story, um, know their values.

Narr: The student champion course was developed in response to numerous racist incidents within the district.

The course directly addresses racism and discrimination, and challenges staff to see students in new ways.

Tod: The creation of the student champion course was really a massive collaborative effort.

There's nothing like it that we know of in the state of California and probably beyond.

Narr: In 2018, the district partnered with WestEd, a non-profit research agency.

WestEd focused on the experiences of students of color who may not see themselves reflected in the district's teaching staff.

Rose: One of the recommendations that we made was that, listen to the students.

Learn from your students.

What is their lived experience in this district?

Todd: Their voice was the, the most absent aspect of the whole thing.

And so, we decided we'd ask.

Rose: After the listening sessions one of the most, um, telling outcomes was that the African American students, uh, some of them made a very compelling statement - “There's nothing for us here.

” Jeremiah Goodman was one of those students who felt that way.

Jeremiah: I came to Madera Unified in kindergarten, and I experienced a lot of racism and discrimination from both students and faculty throughout my K-through-12 education in Madeira Unified.

Narr: But on the first day of his senior year, something horrendous happened to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah: It was during a pandemic.

It was my first day of senior year.

It was civics class.

We were in the zoom because all classes were virtual.

The teacher was going through the first day of class presentation.

The Zoom chat lit up and said, I hate [bleep] over and over again.

And I remember seeing it and, like, literally freezing.

I felt like everybody on the Zoom screen was looking at me ‘cause I was the only black kid in the class.

So, it was only directed at one person.

And, um, class went on like normal.

Todd: No one said a thing.

No one.

And no matter what, the message was sent, um, that this was tolerated.

For me, and I think for many members of my executive cabinet, uh, we grew up here and all we could see were people that... that we loved and cared about who were hurt.

So, there's a real sense of commitment and conviction that this was a moment that we were going to meet one way or the other.

And that took this concept of the student champion and put it into high gear for us and really, um, caused us some deep reflections.

The work we've been doing wasn't sufficient, it wasn't meeting the moment.

We needed to do something more.

So, we really needed to reset.

Narr: The Student Champion course officially launched in the summer of 2022.

Jeremiah and his fellow students played an instrumental role in building the curriculum.

They all shared their stories with the staff.

Jeremiah: My name is Jeremiah Goodman.

I'm a sophomore psychology pre-med major.

Narr: Amanda Asklof is one of the teachers who heard Jeremiah speak at the conference.

Amanda: I had Jeremiah in first grade, and I remember him being one of my only black students in my class, and after hearing him at the conference last year, I had a wake up call.

Hearing how he was excluded.

He wouldnt play with anybody at recess.

It's a... a mom's worst nightmare to know your child is going through that.

And he cried for help in his own little quiet way.

It rips my heart apart.

Now, I'm always, I mean, my head's on a swivel looking for situations.

Is someone alone?

Why are they alone?

Let's get this kid playing with this group no matter what.

But I, I needed to hear that story.

Jeremiah: I'm studying psychology.

Amanda: Right.

Make time to make the relationship with your students.

It's the most important thing you'll ever do.

Jeremiah: Hearing, you know, testimonies from, uh, past teachers like Ms. Asklof really does make me feel like, okay, like we're actually getting somewhere.

It's slow change, but we're going somewhere.

Todd: I don't think it's enough.

I think it's time will tell.

But I do think there is a really powerful commitment.

There's a sense of authenticity that's growing.

There's a sense of vulnerability that's growing.

And there is a sense that students are being seen and heard and they're telling us that.

Jeremiah: I'm just really glad I was able to take something that was so negative at the time and now see that it's like helping something beautiful blossom.

Todd: And that's why this vision and mission, these values, this student champion course, this culture has to be alive and the story has to be told.

Annc: Still ahead on Inside California Education.

Discover the amazing life story of the person dedicated to providing a good education to more than 2 million students and 80 districts throughout L.A. County.

But first, what's a community school?

It's one that serves not just students, but their families and neighborhoods.

We'll explore one school helping address a local food desert with their own on campus farm.

♪♪♪ Narr: When the COVID pandemic shut down California public schools in 2020, many campuses within the Anaheim Union High School District became food distribution centers Sabina Giakoumis, a teacher at Magnolia High School, took notice.

Sabina: We saw how many people needed produce.

So, we knew that there was a need, um, that- and a problem that we could solve for our community by building the farm.

Narr: The farm is the Magnolia Agriscience Community Center, or MACC for short.

Building it was Anaheim's response to California's ambitious $3 billion initiative to dramatically expand its number of community schools- public schools that not only educate students but also provide support and services to the neighborhood as a whole.

Jaron: What were standing on used to be an empty dirt lot.

Students have identified food deserts as a very real issue that is facing our community.

Where theres fast food restaurants all around us, but theres not a lot of grocery stores or places for families to go to get organic, healthy foods.

So- and this is contributing to obesity and health issues that were seeing in our community.

Mimi: The only foods that are really there for the community are junk food and things that do not benefit or give us any nutritional value.

And us students found community gardens as a very good and efficient solution.

I'm seeing the vegetables and fruits being grown in our MACC, the Magnolia Agriscience Community Center, being taken into our cafeteria.

I've also seen it helping families and parents and students by providing them with locally sourced, healthy, nutritious food.

Monty: So, every month we have this thing called the community dinner.

So, anyone in the community can come to our school they could, they could buy our produce, they could taste our produce.

Jaron: We have boxes that we sell to local communities, to local families that are, that are taking these boxes and they're bring- bringing these foods into their homes.

So, this is like their quasi grocery store.

Instructor: For every pound of textiles produced in Indonesia... Narr: The farm feeds the community, but it also helps educate the students.

Their instructors are interns from the University of California, Irvine.

Sabina: They teach lessons around pollination, around sustainable agriculture, around pesticides and runoff, growing good in a changing climate.

Using UCI science students as our teacher.

So, it gives them a little teaching experience.

It gives us smaller class group sizes, uh, to learn about urban farming and sustainable agriculture.

Jaron: And then the learning that, that is happening here with our students.

Theyre able to go back and speak to their families, speak to their friends.

And we're seeing a ripple effect in terms of making healthy- healthier choices.

Narr: Sabina Giakoumis manages the farm, but it's only one part of Anaheim's vision for their community school program.

Sabina: Our vision of a community school is where the school is the center or the hub of the community, where not just students but parents, family members, community members, um, have access to the resources that the schools take on.

We now have lots of social services that we offer, um, to students, and a lot of times parents as well.

Narr: The social services offered to students and their families are a result of the California Community Schools Partnership Program made law in 2021.

It's a $3 billion investment to significantly expand the number of community schools across the state of California.

Its goal: address social inequities made worse by the pandemic.

Jaron: So, I think with California, and to their credit, they recognize that as a school, we have to start functioning a little differently.

But they are investing in our schools, in our students, in our families to create a space to be able to authentically address the instructional needs, but then also the other needs that our students and families have.

Narr: The Community Schools Initiative gave the district the funds to open a new Community Resource Center at Sycamore Junior High School, a hub where families can get the basic help they need so their school kids can succeed.

Jaron: We're standing on our, our farm.

And here's an example of students applying what they're learning to solve a local issue, which is food deserts.

Which is, again, a very different way of looking at community schools than most other districts who are only focused on the wraparound services, right?

The mental health, medical, dental kinds of needs that families and students have identified.

We're doing all that.

That is critically important.

But we're going to step in beyond in bringing these things into the classroom.

Narr: Sabina Giakoumis believes California's initiative to increase the number of communities schools is vital.

Sabina: In a time right now in America where so many of our schools are building up walls around our schools for safety, that does feel a little bit like we as the community are being pushed away or what happens inside of schools is secret.

And so, it is important that we, that we reach out to our communities and let them know we're here we have resources, come in, tell us what your community issues are so that we can become an asset and problem solve alongside with you.

Narr: Through the California Community Schools Partnership Program California is investing more than $3 billion to help schools better support their students.

Four things that all Community Schools must focus on are: Coordinating a range of academic, physical, social-emotional and mental health services to meet their students unique needs.

Actively tapping into the knowledge of family and community members to serve as partners.

Promoting collaborative leadership through professional development for educators and school administrators, and expanding learning opportunities like internships, tutoring, and before and after school and summer programs ♪♪♪ Narr: It's a typical lively morning at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts.

The principal and staff are here to greet arriving students.

But today, something is different and special.

Among the greeters is Dr. Debra Duardo, superintendent of schools for all of L.A. County.

80 districts, over 2 million students.

Dr. Duardo visits schools like this one as often as she can.

Dr. Duardo: And it's just a wonderful opportunity to talk to students, to talk to teachers, to talk to counselors and social workers, and just to hear from the community how things are going.

Millie: We've been practicing since September, so it's been a little while... Narr: That desire to connect, observe, and encourage is deeply rooted in Dr. Duardos own experience and educational journey.

She was one of five siblings growing up in the L.A. area.

She dropped out of high school to work full time to help support her hard working family.

Married at 15, and at 16, mother of a child born with spinal bifida.

Dr. Duardo: The first year of his life, he had to had ten operations, so it was very, very serious and I really needed to understand how to care for him.

And I realized that I didn't understand what the doctors were saying.

I didn't know the difference between a neurologist and a urologist.

I didn't understand the terms that they were using.

And I thought, if I'm going to be a good parent to this child, I have to go back to school and get an education.

Narr: That hunger to advance her education led Dr. Duardo to community college.

Between full time work and parenting four children, it took her a good ten years to graduate.

But then she applied to and was accepted by UCLA.

Dr. Duardo: What I realized is that by getting an education, um, it opened up so many opportunities.

It op- it just opened up doors that I never would have imagined that I could have gone through.

And so, in L.A. County, the majority of our students are low income students and come from families that are really struggling.

And, um, I think it's really important that we do everything possible to expose children to opportunities because sometimes you don't even know what you don't know.

Narr: For Duardo, those newly discovered opportunities led to a bachelor's degree in women's studies, a master's in social work, and perhaps most consequentially, an internship at an L.A. high school.

There, she discovered what would become her life's passion.

Dr. Duardo: And I just fell in love with the kids.

I fell in love with the community.

And I think a big part of working with students is getting them to believe in themselves and, and exposing them to the opportunities thatre available to them.

Narr: In L.A. County, the adversities seem as vast as the region itself.

Poverty, homelessness, language barriers, students with disabilities and special needs, experiencing teen pregnancy and parenthood, or having to work instead of attending school.

As someone who experienced many of those challenges, Dr. Duardo is quick to share her journey and offer encouragement and hope.

Dr. Duardo: You can do it.

I absolutely believe in you, and, and that's the first thing I ask, uh, students when I talk to them is, “What are your dreams and hopes?

” You know, and, and sometimes they, they haven't, you know, figured that out like they need help even thinking that they're worthy of dreaming and that they can do much better and that they can have greater things.

Jimena: It's important to look up to her because that way we can see how she didn't give up.

And even with the problems that she had, she was able to bounce back.

Millie: It's super inspiring for us as students because when you go through so much, but you still come back to serve your community, especially through education, it gives so much hope to the future generation.

Narr: Jimena and Millie are among the many students inspired by Duardos story.

Both are part of the Superintendent's Student Advisory Council meeting once a month.

Millie: It's so nice to know that, you know, we have such a powerful and amazing person that's on our side and actively, you know, pushing for the things that we want to see.

And those of us who come from difficult backgrounds are getting the access to the resources they need.

Narr: Today, Dr. Duardo is committed to finding resources to help all of the 2 million students she serves.

Colleagues say she's a living testament to hope, resilience, hard work, and success despite adversity.

It's a story she hopes will inspire these young people to seek a similar path.

Dr. Duardo: My hope for our students is that they thrive, that not just that they exist, but that they're happy and they live, um, wonderful lives and that they have options and opportunities, that they feel a sense of belonging, um, and that they're successful and reach whatever their dreams are and helping them to see those dreams and to help them to see their potential.

Annc: That's it for this edition of Inside California Education.

If you'd like more information about the program, log on to our website insidecaled.org.

We have videos from all of our shows and you can connect with us on social media.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you next time on Inside California Education.

Tanner: I think I'm going to take so much from this school and kind of take what I've learned here and take all that positivity and bring it to wherever I'm going.

Todd: Rather than seeing them for what they dont have, looking at their lives through a loss frame, we want to look at their lives through a gain frame.

Mimi: Food deserts are basically telling us that there are communities where healthy and nutritious foods are not in reach.

Annc: Funding for inside California Education is made possible by: The California Lottery has been reliably raising additional money for public education for decades.

More than $41 billion since voters created the lottery in 1984.

And thats the reason why California Lottery exists.

Its why we do what we do and work so hard to do it.

Thank you, California, our schools appreciate your support.

Annc: Imagine a credit union where school employees are treated like the heroes you are.

At SchoolFirst Federal Credit Union, everything we do starts with helping school employees and their families live better today and plan for tomorrow.

Learn more at schoolsfirstfcu.org.

Annc: The Stuart Foundation: improving life outcomes for young people through education.

ScholarShare 529: Californias state-sponsored, tax advantaged 529 college savings plan designed to help pay for the cost of higher education.

Additional funding for Inside California Education is made possible by these organizations supporting public education.