Many people are wondering how community schools funding will look under California's 2026-2027 budget. This FAQ explains what we currently know about how community schools funding will work, who qualifies, and what districts and county offices need to understand and be prepared to do. As with most policy, there are details to be worked out and additional implications that will come to light as the new funding structure rolls out. Updated as of August 13, 2026.
The state provides $1 billion per year, on an ongoing basis, for community schools through the California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP). The funding comes from Proposition 98, the state's constitutional funding guarantee for schools. This provides more funding stability for community school development, and new opportunities to grow and deepen the work.
Three parts of the 2026-27 budget matter here. AB 126 includes the provisions for community schools, including the funding, school and LEA eligibility, opt-in language, and a future community schools certification process.
The state program keeps its name and most of the infrastructure behind it, but the way it is funded has changed. Community school funding previously arrived as one-time competitive grants that districts applied for. It is now an ongoing apportionment: a set amount distributed by formula to LEAs for each eligible school that opts in; there is no competitive application, and LEAs work with their schools to determine eligibility, decide to opt in and complete the opt-in requirements.
Have questions? The CCSPP CDE and S-TAC Teams are hosting an informational webinar for those looking to learn more about the shift to apportionment and what it means for community schools. Register here.
The funding comes from Proposition 98, the state's constitutional funding guarantee for schools and goes directly to districts. Districts will work with eligible school sites to complete an opt-in process. Eligible schools opting in receive a per-site amount of roughly $75,000 to $400,000, depending on enrollment (again, the funding goes directly to LEAs and they then distribute it to eligible schools that completed the opt-in process). The funds must supplement, and not supplant, a school's existing Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELO-P), and literacy coach funding program, among others. In other words, the community schools money is added on top of existing funding and cannot be used to replace it.
This is an important change. Under the new budget allocation, an eligible school site is a school with an unduplicated pupil percentage (UPP) of 65 percent or higher, and with at least 10 students enrolled. The change in the UPP cut off has implications for districts that had schools that didn’t meet the original threshold of 80%, making it easier to implement community schools district-wide, and it also has implications for rural districts who heretofore didn’t meet the 80% UPP threshold but want to undertake community school development.
The state has indicated that funds will be available at some point between November 2026 and June 30, 2027. A more specific timeframe has not been set but we expect that the state will narrow the opt-in and funding window down closer to November.
At this point, there is no “end date”. This funding is now part of districts' routine budget allocations through LCFF.
Although this funding moves from a competitive grant program to a formula-based apportionment, districts need to opt in by November 1, 2026 in order to receive funding for the 2026-27 group of schools. Here’s what we know so far about the opt-in process:
Yes, and it’s a significant change from the CCSPP allocations. Under the CCSPP grant program, the funding that went for this district-level work was the lesser of either $500,000 or 10% of the total grant amount. Under the new apportionment program, 10% of the district’s annual allocation can go directly to district-level community school work and supports. This offers substantial dedicated resources for investments in supportive district-wide infrastructure, like capacity building, management structures, collaboration, data systems and expertise, and so on. This is not just grant administration – this is funding for efforts that can yield real and lasting systems change.
County offices of education (COE) continue to play an important coordinating role: connecting districts and schools with local partners such as regional public agencies, nonprofits, and community-based organizations, and typically designating a staff lead for community schools. Under the new law, the state will provide annual funding to county offices to support this coordination role. Going forward, the amount of county coordination funding is tied to the number of sites receiving community schools allocations in their county. Early analysis puts it in the range of roughly $200,000 to $500,000 per county office. As a result, some county offices that received funding before may receive different levels of funding now. The coordination role itself remains important either way, and county offices are well-positioned to keep connecting partners and aligning support across their districts. An important note here: COEs should lean into their coordination role – not just in externally-facing coordination and coherence but also within their own departments (e.g., expanded learning, SELPA, behavioral health, instructional support). COEs should be asking themselves how they can use this stable funding to establish or build out their own systems, routines and behaviors of alignment and coherence that can better support their districts.
Generally speaking, existing CCSPP grantees keep their grants and grant agreements (so their eligibility for the ongoing apportionment program for CCSPP-funded schools may kick in later). If the annual amount of your current grant is higher than what you might receive in an allocation, there is no change for the remainder of your grant terms; if the annual amount of your implementation grant is lower, you will receive the difference between that amount and the formula-based allocation.
A district can choose to include schools that may not be ready or are in the early stages of community school development because those school sites can use initial funds to develop an implementation plan aligned to the state framework before they begin implementation. At opt-in, a district indicates whether each school is in a planning phase or an implementation phase.
Correct. These funds can (and, we would argue, should) be used for an up to two-year planning period for schools that are newer to community school development. After up to two years of planning, schools can then submit implementation plans to use funding to, well, implement their CS development plans.
The state is developing a certification process to support and ensure quality community schools implementation. The California Department of Education (CDE) will provide oversight and the S-TAC and R-TAC will provide implementation support. It will phase in over the coming years, and site-level certification, planned for every seven years, is scheduled to begin in the 2031-32 school year. While the details are still being developed, we aren’t starting entirely from scratch. States like Florida and New Mexico already have community school certification programs in place that we can learn from, and the legislation builds in time for the state to both learn from other certification programs and from practitioners, researchers and other interest holders. CSLX will share more as the timeline and details start to take shape.
Several details remain in development at the state level. These include the specific timing of when funds will be disbursed, the exact opt-in process, and the certification standards and procedures. Stay tuned – we’ll be sharing updates as details continue to unfold.
CSLX can help you understand what these changes mean for your community, and help you plan your next steps. Join our webinar in mid-September to walk through what is known and answer questions. For additional information about working with CSLX, please contact CSLX at hello@cslx.org. For updates on the webinar, join our email list.