The community school model in action

How a Butte County alternative education school removes barriers

A seventh-grade boy’s shoes were splitting apart. The soles were worn thin. The seams had opened on both sides, his feet bursting through. The student kept wearing them as he grew, be it on cold days, rainy days and in physical education (PE). Lucas Bradbury, the community school coordinator at Butte County Community School (BCCS) in Chico, couldn’t help but notice. And he also noticed this student wasn’t alone in this particular need.

BCCS is an alternative education campus serving students in grades 7-12, operated by the Butte County Office of Education. Outgrown shoes are just one of the many barriers that students at community schools face in their pursuit of educational success. Part of the charge of BCCS is to identify and address those barriers beyond curriculum, to provide safety and solutions for students and families who need them the most. So, Bradbury, Butte COE’s 2024 “Rookie of the Year” award winner, started looking for shoes.

“Being an alternative education school comes with the reality of low socioeconomic backgrounds, sometimes parents not working at all,” Bradbury said. “And one kid was the spark. I was noticing families of three, four students that went here, and all their shoes were pretty well worn. That was my catalyst.”

Bradbury’s trail led to an organization in Tennessee called Soles4Souls, one of the few groups in the country set up to distribute large volumes of new, name-brand shoes directly to schools. “People like Lucas and his colleagues can offer shoes to their most vulnerable children in a way that is dignifying and confidential and done with sensitivity,” said Tiffany Turner, Soles4Souls’s vice president of outreach. “It builds a bridge. It meets a need. And it opens the door to more trust between the student, the family and their educators.”

Since Bradbury’s initial outreach, hundreds of pairs of shoes and socks have moved through BCCS — not just for students, but for their families as well. Students who had been wearing shoes with holes now rotate between a school pair and a pair for PE.

“I like my new shoes, I get to wear them to PE,” one student said.

“I now don’t have shoes with holes in them,” another added. “I look and feel cool.”

“We see through the data we collect that children feel more confident and have more of a sense of belonging,” Turner said. “We’ve read countless impact stories about attendance being affected when students don’t have proper footwear or clothing. If they don’t have the right shoes, it keeps them out of things that make them feel like they belong.”

BCCS is referral-based. Students may arrive after being expelled, suspended or disengaging from their home campuses. Many come from families under financial strain. Some are living in unstable housing.

That is why the school does not treat clothing, basic supplies, or even food as extras; they are part of how students get through the day.

“It’s just the school that we are — we really live the community school model,” Bradbury said. “And because we’re so small, we’re able to drill down into family needs, not only student needs.”

Battling food insecurity

Bradbury’s same persistence that went into finding shoes went into finding food. He spent nearly a year trying to secure a stable supply of fresh produce for students and their families.

“I know, fundamentally, that our students are not getting the nutrition they need — they’re not getting fresh produce, fruits, vegetables. They don’t have access to it, especially for free,” Bradbury said.

After early creative partnerships with restaurants and hospitals, Bradbury eventually found the Butte County Local Food Network (BCLFN), which now provides weekly fresh produce to BCCS families. The food network works with farmers across the county to bring fresh, locally grown produce into the community.

Once a week, bags of produce arrive at BCCS and are distributed to families. The count changes week to week and the needs fluctuate, but they don’t disappear. At first, some students didn’t want to be seen taking food. Bradbury and staff walked the bags out to cars so kids wouldn’t have to carry them across campus. Over time, that changed. Now students line up. Some step forward to thank the person unloading the truck. They carry the bags themselves.

“When I tell the farmers about the kids and how they come out, climb in my truck and get their food bags, it’s just really special to see what it means to everyone,” said Donna Garrison, an administrator with BCLFN. “You think about, ’Do these kids have food that is good for their bodies, good for their brains?’ And so the hope is that’s what we’re providing for them.”

Though federal grant funding for programs like this has ceased for now, BCCS is determined to continue meeting those needs.

The community school model in action

The efforts are paying off, Bradbury said. On Wednesdays, when the produce arrives, more students show up. Shoes that once kept kids out of PE now sit in a row by the door, swapped in and out as needed. One student didn’t come to school for the first five days of the year. When staff texted to ask why, he said he didn’t have anything new to wear. When the school offered him a pair of new shoes, he came back.

This is the logic of a community school: barriers aren’t theoretical. A pair of shoes can decide whether a student comes to school. A bag of produce can decide whether a family eats fresh food that week.

At BCCS, the work is to notice those barriers early and address them so students can succeed.

– Travis Souders is the communications officer at the Butte County Office of Education