California Serves

California Serves Grants

Beginning with the 2022–23 fiscal year, $5 million will be appropriated annually to the CDE to award in grants to eligible LEAs participating in the California Serves Grant Program. The CDE will develop and administer this grant program in collaboration with California Volunteers, including developing criteria for the awarding of grants, developing an application process, requesting data from participating LEAs, and awarding grants.

Under this program, eligible LEAs may receive up to $500,000 annually in grants, which may be used for:

• Paid planning time for teachers to increase the use of service learning in instruction.
• Professional development on service learning for administrators and teachers.
• Purchase of instructional materials to help integrate service learning in instruction.
• Participation costs, including materials or travel expenses related to service learning activities.
• Personnel costs for coordinating service learning at the LEA or a school site.
• Participation costs associated with grant program evaluation.

Per EC Section 51475(d), in order to be eligible to apply for this grant, at least 55 percent of the pupils enrolled in the applicant LEA shall be unduplicated pupils as defined in EC Section 2574 or 42238.02, as applicable. Please review the California Serves Eligibility spreadsheet to determine your LEA’s unduplicated pupil rate and eligibility to apply for this grant:

California Serves Grant 2024–25 Eligibility (XLSX)

Grant Web Pages and Timelines

*Timeline subject to change.

Application Workshop Webinar

Applicants are invited to attend an informational webinar to learn more about the requirements of the California Serves Grant Program RFA. The application webinar will be held on Monday, December 16, 2024, from 9:30 to 11 a.m.

Zoom registration for December 16, 2024 Webinar .

Previous California Serves Grant Cycles

2023-24

The 2023–24 school year was the second year of this program. For more information, please visit the 2023–24 California Serves Grant Program Funding Results web page.

California Serves Grant 2023–24 Eligibility (XLSX)

2022-23

In the 2022–23 school year, the CDE began the pilot year of this program. In May of 2023, the CDE posted the final awards for the initial year of funding. For more information, please visit the 2022–2023 California Serves Grant Program Funding Results web page.

California Serves Grant 2022–23 Eligibility (XLSX)

Reports to the Legislature

EC Section 51475 requires that the CDE, in partnership with California Volunteers, provide recommendations to the Legislature, consistent with Section 9795 of the Government Code and consistent with the recommended criteria and implementation guidance for the SSCE pursuant to this article, on evidence-based strategies to expand access to high-quality service-learning programs in California high schools and promote equitable access to these programs.

California Serves: Strategies to Expand High-Quality and Accessible Service-Learning Programs in California High Schools

EC Section 51475 also requires the CDE, on or before November 5, 2024, and in partnership with California Volunteers, to submit an annual report to the Legislature on participation in the California Serves grant program. Annual reports to the Legislature will be posted here as soon as they become available.

Recommendations for Service-Learning

EC Section 51475 requires that the CDE, in partnership with California Volunteers, provide recommendations to the Legislature, consistent with Section 9795 of the Government Code and consistent with the recommended criteria and implementation guidance for the State SSCE pursuant to this article, on evidence-based strategies to expand access to high-quality service learning programs in California high schools and promote equitable access to these programs.

The following five recommendations are summarized from the California Serves: Strategies to Expand High-Quality and Accessible Service Learning Programs in California High Schools report to the Legislature. Additional information and resources are available from the report.

Recommendation 1: Establish Effective Standards and Indicators

The National Youth Leadership Council (NYLC) developed the following framework of critical elements that educators can use to develop high-quality, rigorous, relevant projects. This framework can effectively guide development of equitable, high-quality service-learning programs that can also support student attainment of the SSCE.

The six standards identified in this framework are:

1. Meaningful Service: Service-learning actively engages participants in meaningful and personally-relevant service activities.
2. Link to Curriculum: Service-learning is intentionally used as an instructional strategy to meet learning goals and/or content standards.
3. Reflection: Service-learning incorporates multiple challenging reflection activities that are ongoing and that prompt deep thinking and analysis about oneself and one’s relationship to society.
4. Diversity: Service-learning promotes understanding of diversity and mutual respect among all participants.
5. Youth Voice: Service-learning provides youth with a strong voice in planning, implementing, and evaluating service-learning experiences with guidance from adults.
6. Partnerships: Service-learning partnerships are collaborative, mutually beneficial, and address community needs.

Indicators for each standard are available from the NYLC Service-Learning K–12 Standards web page.

Recommendation 2: Incorporate Curriculum and Strategies that Encourage Deep Civic Learning

LEAs seeking to develop and promote access to service-learning programs should ensure that these programs include curriculum and strategies that encourage deep civic learning. Examples of instructional strategies and curriculum resources that support this recommendation include:

College, Career, and Civic (C3) Life Framework for Social Studies State Standards Inquiry Arc
The C3 Framework provides guidance to states on concepts, skills, and disciplinary tools that can prepare students for college, career, and civic life. The Framework includes an inquiry arc that highlights four dimensions that support the pursuit of knowledge through questions. Service-learning programs that incorporate these four dimensions can help LEAs ensure that students who are working towards a SSCE through service-learning are engaging in rigorous civic engagement and learning.

A Teacher’s Guide to Service-learning (PDF)
The CDE César E. Chávez Model Curriculum teacher resources include this essay, which defines service-learning, provides context, and outlines five elements that should be addressed in all service-learning programs, and includes guidance for conceptualizing a service-learning project that is connected to California content standards.

Teach Democracy
Teach Democracy’s (formerly Constitutional Rights Foundation) Civic Action Project (CAP) is a free project-based learning program for civics and government, in which students identify an issue or problem that matters to them, connect it to public policy, and then take action related to their selected issue or problem. The CAP can be integrated into a service-learning program by ensuring that student projects meet the needs of the community, is coordinated within the school environment, helps foster civic responsibility, is integrated into the curriculum, and provides structured time for students to reflect on the service experience.

Integrated Action Civics Project (IACP)
The UC Berkeley IACP provides a framework for students to embark on civic engagement projects that promote a student sense of self, focused on identity, justice, and worldview. This approach weaves analysis of history, civic action and change-analysis throughout course content.

Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR)
The UC Berkeley YPAR Hub provides a framework, including reflection questions, specific guidance and resources, and sample projects to guide youth through community development projects that incorporate a process of action-oriented research.

Youth-Plan, Learn, Act Now (Y-PLAN)
The UC Berkeley Y-PLAN program is a civic learning methodology developed by UC Berkeley’s Center for Cities + Schools that incorporates youth into city planning projects. The methodology includes a 5-step roadmap modeled on the scientific method and participatory planning techniques used by civic professionals that guide students from project planning to getting started, researching the city, developing action steps, going public with those steps, and evaluating their progress and next steps.

Recommendation 3: Ensure Teacher Access to Ongoing Professional Development and Learning

The following organizations provide professional development and learning to educators, administrators, and other groups that align with the QPLS, and include programs focused on service-learning, civic learning, and civic engagement.

National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS)
NCSS provides advocacy, professional learning and development, publications, and other resources dedicated to supporting social studies education. Their Civic Life Project is dedicated to helping students develop informed, diverse perspectives on social issues, and may be a resource to consider incorporating into a service-learning program that supports the SSCE.

California Council for the Social Studies (CCSS)
CCSS is a membership-based non-profit professional organization that provides resources, instructional support, and advocacy at the local, state, and national levels. Their annual conference offers a series of professional development sessions that educators and administrators may find useful in developing high-quality service-learning programs that support the SSCE.

California History–Social Science Project (CHSSP)
The CHSSP specializes in supporting K–12 educators to provide high quality history–social science instruction. The statewide office supports six regional sites across the state. Each regional site features teachers and scholars collaborating to provide high quality classroom instruction that may be incorporated into a service-learning program that also supports acquisition of the SSCE.

Recommendation 4: Prioritize Efforts to Track Who Earns the State Seal of Civic Engagement

LEAs should also prioritize efforts to track and analyze who earns an SSCE insignia. This can help identify potential barriers students are facing to accessing the SSCE locally.

The Leveraging Equity & Access in Democratic Education (LEADE) 2023 report, “California’s Commitment to K–12 Civic Learning: A 2022 Assessment (PDF),” includes three suggestions for LEAs seeking to ensure equity and access to the SSCE:

1. Define civic excellence as a goal for all students (rather than just the highest-achieving students).
2. Integrate equity into all civic learning opportunities (as opposed to seeing equity as an afterthought).
3. Examine traditional eligibility measures, such as GPA, to determine if these are serving as unnecessary barriers to participation in civic and/or service-learning.

Beginning in the 2023–24 school year, the CDE will collect data on the individual students who earn the SSCE for determining its use in the College/Career Indicator (CCI) on the California School Dashboard (Dashboard). Background information on this work is available from the CDE SBE Items Related to the SSCE web page.

Recommendation 5: Design Meaningfull Infrastructre that Promotes Service-Learning at All Levels

LEAs seeking to offer the SSCE through service-learning should consider the following questions:

1. Who, at the county, district, and school-site level, will be responsible for developing, implementing, and monitoring student progress in service-learning projects that lead to the SSCE?
2. How will these monitoring and tracking practices be evaluated and modified over time?
3. How will the LEA ensure continuity of these monitoring and tracking practices over the long-term, taking into account inevitable staff turnover, shifting initiatives and priorities, and changes to funding?

The 2023 LEADE report (PDF) on civic learning includes recommendations to ensure that an LEA’s infrastructure truly encourages quality civic learning. These recommendations can also be applied to high-quality service-learning programs:

1. Adopt the SSCE alongside a broader, LEA-wide commitment to democratic education.
2. Provide staffing and support for civic learning programs, such as the SSCE.
3. Integrate many voices (including student voices) through democratic processes.
   

Model Uniform Metrics

EC Section 51475 requires that CDE, in partnership with California Volunteers, develop model uniform metrics, based on the recommended criteria for the SSCE, for the measurement of pupil progress toward academic, civic engagement, and other learning objectives.

Model uniform metrics are under development, and will be posted here as soon as they are available.