Before we called them community schools

When I entered high school in the fall of 1992, my parents did everything they could to keep me out of Castlemont High School.

Castlemont, tucked into the heart of East Oakland, carried a reputation that stretched far beyond its campus. It was the school parents whispered about. The school they hoped their children could avoid if another option existed. It was that school.

Before high school, I attended St. Louis Bertrand School, a small Catholic school just a few blocks away. People often imagine private school as a completely different world, but East Oakland was still East Oakland. We lived in the same neighborhoods, walked the same streets, and heard the same sirens at night. My parents were determined to find another path, so they managed to enroll me at San Leandro High School using the address of one of my mother's coworkers.

For a few months, it worked…until it didn't. Halfway through my freshman year, the district discovered where I actually lived. I was withdrawn from San Leandro and had to enroll into Castlemont–my neighborhood school. At fourteen years old, I thought I had lost.

Looking back now, it may have been one of the greatest gifts of my life, and to understand why, you have to understand Oakland in the early 1990s.

The city was still carrying the weight of the crack epidemic. Families were rebuilding after years of loss and instability. Violence wasn't something we watched on television—it was woven into everyday life. We learned which streets to avoid before we learned world history. We learned to read people as carefully as we read books.

The soundtrack of our adolescence was N.W.A., Too Short, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and films like Boyz n the Hood and New Jack City. Those weren't simply songs and movies to us. They reflected pieces of the neighborhoods we lived in and the choices we watched people make every day. Culture had a voice, and it was loud. Years ago, I described growing up in Oakland as receiving as much of our education on "the concrete and cement of everyday living" as we did inside a classroom.

But that's only half the story. Because while Oakland carried pain, it also carried heart, artistry, a deep history and possibility. In the middle of all that noise were adults quietly building something different, something beautiful.

They saw us

One of those adults was Mr. Wolfe. To this day, I couldn't tell you exactly what the State and Federal Office at Castlemont was responsible for. Honestly...I still don't know. But I know what Mr. Wolfe did.

He noticed us.

For reasons I can't completely explain, my friends and I always seemed to end up in his office. We weren't there because we were in trouble. We were there because his office felt safe. There was conversation. There was laughter. There was encouragement. There was someone who knew our names and expected something from us.

Mr. Wolfe was also the one who introduced many of us to Teens on Target, the flagship youth program offered by Youth ALIVE.

At the time, it felt like another after-school opportunity that they were trying to push struggling 9th grade students into. Looking back, I realize he wasn't simply recruiting students into a program. He was opening a door – a door into leadership, into advocacy, and into what ultimately became my life's work.

Years later, after becoming a Community School Coordinator myself, I finally found language for what Mr. Wolfe had been doing: creating belonging. Not because belonging was written into a strategic plan. Not because someone had identified it as a key practice. He simply cared.

Mr. Wolfe wasn't alone. Mr. Wolfe, Mr. Lobb—and so many others whose names still come to mind—created classrooms where students felt known. They challenged us academically, but they also made room for us as people. Long before schools talked about developmental relationships, protective factors, or relationship-centered practice, these educators embodied these principles every single day.

Then I entered the Environmental Science Academy. Today we'd probably call it a career pathway. Back then, it simply felt like family.

Being cohorted together meant our teachers knew us. They noticed when we struggled. They celebrated when we succeeded. The academy created continuity, relationships, and community long before I had language for any of those things.

Looking back, I realize I wasn't simply receiving an education. I was experiencing many of the very conditions we now recognize as essential to student success, including belongingness and mattering.

And then there was music. During my 10th grade year, I joined the Castlemont Castlers, our award-winning traveling choir directed by Rachelle Bland—now Dr. Rachelle Rogers-Ard. If you were a Castler, you knew our motto by heart:"We make beautiful music for everyone to hear."

Looking back, I realize we were learning far more than music. Dr. Rogers-Ard created another space where students were expected to lead, collaborate, and discover their voices–literally and figuratively! By my junior and senior years, I served as Choir Business Manager and Section Leader. I was learning how to organize people, manage responsibilities, communicate with my peers, and lead with confidence—skills that would follow me into every professional role I would ever hold.

Dr. Rogers-Ard continues to shape educational leaders across California, coaching teachers, principals, district leaders, and county offices of education while remaining a fierce advocate for young people. It doesn't surprise me. She was developing leaders long before most of us had language for leadership development.

Today, I realize Castlemont wasn't changing my life through one remarkable teacher. It was an ecosystem of adults who kept creating spaces where students could discover who they were becoming – and where we belonged.

Learning to lead, sharing my voice

When Mr. Wolfe introduced me to Teens on Target and Youth ALIVE, that changed everything. If Castlemont helped me find belonging, Youth ALIVE helped me discover that my voice could have career impact. I learned to facilitate violence prevention workshops. I spoke in classrooms across Oakland. I traveled across the country representing the voices of young people. I learned advocacy, organizing, public speaking, and civic engagement. I earned money while developing leadership skills. Most importantly, I learned that my voice belonged in rooms where decisions were being made.

Some of our biggest victories happened outside our own school. As teenagers, we helped advocate for what would become the Oakland Fund for Children and Youth (OFCY), a public investment that continues today to fund opportunities for young people across Oakland.

We weren't thinking about systems change. We simply knew that young people deserved safe places to learn, lead, belong, and thrive, and we believed we could make that happen. 

Now I know what was really going on. We weren't just participating in an after-school program. We were being developed into leaders.

Then we finally had a name

In 2011, I stepped into one of Oakland's early Community School Coordinator roles. At that point, I had already spent years working in youth development and after-school programming.

As California's community schools movement expanded—and especially through the historic investment of the California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP)—I often found myself quietly smiling whenever people described community schools as something entirely “new.” 

I understood the excitement, I appreciated the investment, and I celebrated the framework. And I also knew something else: I'd lived community schools. Sure, Castlemont wasn't called a community school. It didn’t have the formal designation, grant, or framework. But it had caring adults, integrated supports, expanded learning opportunities, and career pathways. Castlemont had youth leadership and student voice, performing arts, community partnerships, employment opportunities. All this–and so much more–was anchored in trusting relationships and belonging.

Today, we'd recognize those experiences reflected across the pillars and key practices that define community schools. Back then we just called it “school.” 

Community schools didn't invent these ideas. California gave language, investment, and policy support to work that youth developers, after-school educators, community organizers, and caring adults had been faithfully building for decades.

That's why I've always struggled when, for example, people separate expanded learning from community schools. From a funding perspective, they may live in different departments. From a young person's perspective, they're parts of one experience. Young people don't experience systems. They experience people.

The work that sustains us

One of the questions I hear most often today is, "How do we sustain community schools?" Usually, the conversation turns to funding. Staffing. Implementation. Policy. Now, those things matter. But I wonder if sustainability begins somewhere much deeper.

Community schools are sustained every time a young person finds one trusted adult.

Every time a student discovers their voice.

Every time leadership is shared.

Every time belonging becomes something students actually feel.

What sustained Castlemont wasn't a grant. It was an ecosystem of adults who believed every young person deserved multiple places to belong. Funding launches initiatives. People build, sustain and grow movements.

The legacy

Today, when I walk into community school meetings and statewide trainings, I hear familiar stories and see familiar people. My friend, Dr. LaTre, fellow TNT member, is now a social worker and educational leader in Texas. My friend, Franklin, former Castleer Business Manager, and his wife Jenji, lead Blaze Consulting, strengthening schools, and youth-serving organizations throughout the Bay Area. I could name dozens more.

Many of us grew up in the very systems we now spend our careers strengthening. When people ask me why so many former youth developers make strong community school leaders, I think the answer is simple.

We learned early that relationships come before programs. That belonging comes before achievement. That leadership is developed, not assigned. That youth voice isn't another initiative.

That's the work.

My parents spent months trying to keep me out of Castlemont High School. I understand why. They wanted opportunities for their daughter. What none of us knew was that opportunities were already waiting for me there. Not because of the building. Not because of its reputation. Because of the people. People like Mr. Wolfe, who quietly opened doors I didn't know existed. People like Mr. Lobb, who made classrooms feel safe enough to learn. People like Dr. Rochelle Rogers-Ard, who taught us that leadership could sound like harmony and that every voice mattered. Different adults. Different classrooms. Different gifts. The same unwavering belief in young people. 

Community schools didn't begin with a framework. They began with adults who believed in young people. 

And maybe that's the real legacy of youth development. It doesn't just change young people, it raises the adults who spend the rest of their lives changing systems to better serve young people. Many of us are simply continuing the work that someone else started in us long before we ever called it a community school.

by Dawn Costa

Dawn Costa is a values-based leader with a career spanning twenty-five years in youth development, school-based nonprofit program development, and community advocacy. She has held various roles in her work, from Teacher, Afterschool Program Director, Interim Executive Director of a Youth Development agency, and Community Schools Director. For the past three years, Dawn has held the role of professional development coordinator for Oakland Unifed’s School District’s Community School Managers. Her joy for training and facilitation coincides with her commitment to fostering a supportive and inclusive learning environment for adult leaders in the work.