An Appropriate Organizational Model

Each of the Alliance partnerships has an organizational structure that includes one or more broadly representative advisory or steering committees and a partnership coordinator or director who is responsible for managing day-to-day activities.

The City Heights advisory board consists of representatives of the funding foundation, schools and the school district, the university, parents and the teacher's union. An Executive Director manages the day-to-day activities. The Santa Cruz Educational Partnership Center (EPC), with a full-time director and a sizable staff, is under the aegis of the Student Service Division of the University of California and is advised by three councils. One council consists of superintendents and community college presidents; a second consists of community college representatives; and a third consists of UC administrators and faculty. In Long Beach the main leadership of the partnership comes from a "Seamless Education" committee comprised of teachers, faculty and staff from the three institutions and co-chaired by deans from the university and community college and an assistant district superintendent. A full-time partnership coordinator reports to a school district assistant superintendent.

In Kern County, the "Group of Six" consists of the presidents of the university and community college, the county superintendent of schools and the superintendents of the three largest school districts. This body meets regularly and actively manages the work of the partnership. The project coordinator, a retired community college district chancellor, handles day-to-day operations. In Santa Ana, a partnership board includes the senior administrators from the university, community college and school district and meets semi-annually. A "Leadership Team" consists of representatives of more than twenty partner organizations, including students, faculty, parents, community, and evaluation representatives. A vice president of student services at Santa Ana College facilitates the partnership.

The North County Federation steering committee is comprised of a representative of each school district, the assistant dean from the college of education at the university, a representative of the county office of education, and the partnership director and meets monthly. A partnership director handles day-to-day activities. Shasta has a one-third time project coordinator who reports to the school district assistant superintendent and each participating high school has a site coordinator.

Thus, all of the Alliance partnerships have created two key organizational structures. First, each has an advisory or steering committee which is representative of the institutions affected by partnership work. Santa Ana has the most broadly representative advisory board including many community organizations. The breadth of membership in the advisory boards appears to depend upon the scope of the partnership activities, as might be expected. Most partnerships bring all the parties together in one advisory group but Santa Cruz maintains three different advisory groups. Second, each partnership has a specific staff position with dedicated time, to ensure that partnership activities are coordinated. This position may be full-time, as in Long Beach, Santa Cruz and San Diego, or fractional, as in Shasta, but in each case is specifically dedicated to organizing the partnership activities.