The Climate Empowerment Learning Initiative (CELI) is built on a teacher-led, cross-disciplinary climate education community across a feeder middle–to-high school pathway in Hayward, Calfornia. Over the four-year duration of CELI (2021–2025), our research team examined patterns of collaboration of over 72 participants involving teachers, students, administrators (2 principals and 3 assistant principals), local nonprofit directors, and university researchers. From the middle school, we engaged 31 participants, consisting of 23 classroom teachers. At the high school, we noted 20 participants, including 16 classroom teachers. CELI’s leadership model centered teachers as Head-Heart-Hands Leads (34) and STEM Core Leads (5), who were supported by network coordination roles and an advisory board. The importance of our work can be seen with the 44 participants who dedicated their time for two or more years, including a stable core of 17 who participated across all four years. Teachers' subject areas spanned ELA/ELD, science/STEM, social studies, math, world languages, arts, special education, and PE/health, reflecting CELI’s interdisciplinary approach and focus on scaling beyond a single department.

Overview

• Initiative scope

  • A multi-year, teacher-led climate & sustainability education initiative implemented across a secondary school pathway.

  • Participation included educators, school leaders, & external support partners.

• Participation & roles

  • The initiative tracked 70+ unique participants over four years.

  • Participation included:

    • Classroom teachers (the largest group)

    • Teacher-leadership roles (multiple tiers)

    • Coordination roles supporting implementation

    • Advisory/steering roles

    • School administrators (principals & assistant principals)

    • University, district, & community partner personnel

• Continuity over time (sustained participation):

  • Participation by year:

    • 41 in 2021–22, 36 in 2022–23, 39 in 2023–24, 35 in 2024–25

  • CELI sustained a stable core (site admin & teachers):

    • 44 participants engaged for 2+ years

    • 24 participants engaged for 3+ years

    • 17 participants engaged across all four years

• Cross-disciplinary reach (not just science):

  • Participating educators spanned ELA/ELD, science/STEM, social studies, math, world languages, arts, special education, PE/health, plus leadership/assistant roles (supporting CELI’s interdisciplinary model).

• How impact was measured: implementation logs, surveys, interviews/focus groups, observations, artifacts.

• What leaders noticed: initiating & cultivating bottom-up approaches toward interdisciplinary practices in climate education resulted in a climate resolution passed by the district to expand the CELI model across their schools.

HPN is a community-driven project that scaled and coordinated educational and family-support services through a cross-institutional partnership operating within an urban public-school district. The network maintained a large active pool of participants (nearly 200 people) from 10 partnership institutions (local community college, universities, family support services, youth engagement), collaborating with 14 K–12 schools (8 elementary and 6 secondary). Supports were organized into four pathways (early learning, K–12, college and career readiness, and family/community outreach), allowing partners to align their efforts across the "whole student" experience. Scaling was not without its challenges but with strengthened coordination, the network built a reflexive learning system grounded in structured data collection, including semi-structured interviews with both backbone leaders and program implementers to support improvement decisions informed by on-the-ground experience.

• Network scope

  • A cross-partners network supporting students & families within a public-school district.

  • Active contact list of nearly 200 people across district & partner organizations.

• Participation & convening

  • Major convenings bring together ~60 unique participants, with representation split between district staff & external partners (including site staff).

  • Attendance tracking shows consistent engagement across key partners.

• Geographic & site reach

  • Work spans 14 school sites across elementary, middle, & high school levels.

• Service model

  • Coordinated supports are organized into four pathways:

    • Early learning

    • K–12 supports

    • College & career readiness

    • Family & community supports

  • The system observes dozens of program line-items across these pathways to support coordination & continuity.

• Learning & improvement system

  • Continuous improvement is supported by structured data gathering (e.g., interviews with backbone leaders & program implementers).

  • Interview tracking includes completion & transcription to support analysis & decision-making.

• What we did: network learning & evidence evaluation across community partners, interviews transcribed/analyzed in MaxQDA.

• Scale: 32 interviews / ~1,500 minutes across multiple organizations.

• Network function: partners describe HPN as the backbone coordinating an integrated “whole child” ecosystem.