The CCSPP Community-Partner RFP

What grantee LEAs are really asking for in 2026-27 — and how enrichment partners should respond. A dual-audience playbook for the final CCSPP cohort.

The California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP) is now the largest state investment in the community-schools model in United States history — $4.1 billion in one-time Proposition 98 funds, running through 2031, spanning four cohorts of implementation grants at up to $500,000 per school site annually across a five-year term. Cohort 4 is the final Implementation Grant cohort. And every grantee LEA — from LAUSD down to a two-school rural district in West Kern County — is now sitting on the same operational question: who exactly do we hire to actually deliver the four pillars, and how do we structure the RFP so the right partner shows up? This post is the dual-audience playbook. For LEA community-schools coordinators, it is the RFP template checklist. For enrichment, expanded-learning, and family-engagement partners, it is the response playbook. Every claim is cited to primary source.

01 / Why CCSPP grantees suddenly need partner RFPs in 2026-27

Three specific pressures converge in the 2026-27 school year. Cohort 4 is the last cohort; grantees who missed it are not getting a Cohort 5. Cohort 3 grantees are entering Year 2 or Year 3 of their five-year implementation and rolling out their full 4-pillar model. And the $4.1B statewide investment is under active review by the Legislature and the Learning Policy Institute — with the 2025 Legislative Report already published and every LEA under pressure to show implementation-fidelity outcomes tied to their Annual Progress Report (APR).

The result: every grantee LEA is issuing partner RFPs right now — some for the first time, some rebidding after a Year 1 partner underdelivered. Community-based organizations, enrichment vendors, mental-health providers, and family-services partners are receiving these RFPs and often responding without a clear framework. This post fixes that on both sides.

02 / The four pillars, mapped to partner categories

CDE defines the community-schools model around four evidence-informed programmatic features. Each pillar maps to specific partner categories.

Pillar 1 — Integrated Support Services

Wraparound student supports: medical, dental, mental-health, social services, immigration and housing navigation, tutoring, and case management. Typical partners: FQHCs and school-based health centers, community mental-health agencies, legal-aid nonprofits, housing-services nonprofits, tutoring organizations.

Pillar 2 — Family and Community Engagement

Parent leadership, adult education, family literacy, community events, parent-teacher-community trust-building. Typical partners: family-services nonprofits, adult-ed providers, community organizing groups, culturally-specific CBOs, translation services.

Pillar 3 — Collaborative Leadership and Practices for Educators and Administrators

Site-level shared decision-making, PD for teachers on community-schools practice, coaching for site-based community-schools coordinators. Typical partners: technical assistance organizations (CSLX, UCLA Center for Community Schooling, county offices), PD providers, coaching networks.

Pillar 4 — Extended Learning Time and Opportunities

Before-school, afterschool, summer, and intersession enrichment — STEM, arts, coding, robotics, physical activity, social-emotional learning, academic support. Typical partners: K-8 enrichment providers, ELO-P-aligned vendors, 21st CCLC operators, arts partners, sports and physical-activity organizations. This is the pillar where most Kodely-adjacent conversations live.

A CCSPP-aligned RFP typically issues a bundled solicitation across two or three pillars, or issues separate RFPs per pillar. Either way, the winning partner must map their scope of work explicitly to the LEA’s board-approved Community Schools Implementation Plan — not to a generic curriculum brochure.

03 / What a CCSPP-aligned partner RFP must include (LEA-side checklist)

If you are a community-schools coordinator writing your first partner RFP, this is the 10-section template that will attract serious CBO responses and deter thin ones.

Site scope and CCSPP grant context. Name the funded sites, the CCSPP cohort (2, 3, or 4), the grant year (Year 1 through Year 5), and the board-approved Implementation Plan section the partner will operate under.
Pillar mapping. Name the pillar(s) the partner is being asked to serve, and reference the specific Implementation Plan strategies and activities they will support.
Population served. Grade bands, enrollment counts, unduplicated pupil percentages, English learners, foster/homeless youth. The APR requires disaggregated outcomes; the RFP should signal what disaggregation the partner needs to support.
Scope of services in operational language. Sessions per week, per site. Grade bands per session. Instructional hours per year. Named tracks or program types (not “STEM enrichment” — specify: coding, animation, LEGO robotics, chemistry, media arts). Named platforms where relevant.
Match documentation requirements. CCSPP requires a 33% (one-third) local match — cash or in-kind. State whether partner-provided in-kind services count toward the match, and what documentation the partner must produce (per-hour valuation, staff credentials, market-rate comparability).
Braiding language. Name which other funding streams (ELO-P, 21st CCLC/ASES, Prop 28, Title I, Title IV-A, LREBG) may co-fund the partner’s work, and require the partner to invoice against the appropriate resource code by session or activity — no lump-sum billing across funds.
APR alignment. Require the partner to name which CCSPP Annual Progress Report indicators their work will move — attendance, chronic absenteeism, family engagement metrics, expanded-learning participation, or discipline-referral reduction — and how they will produce the data.
MWBE / DVBE / SBE preference. Include supplier-diversity preference language. CCSPP does not mandate MWBE, but LEA supplier-diversity policy typically does, and MWBE-certified partners help satisfy the LEA’s own reporting.
Insurance, credentialing, and background-check requirements. Live Scan, TB, mandated-reporter certification, CPR, standard liability insurance minimums. Partners without these should not be in your pool.
Evaluation rubric and scoring criteria. Publish the rubric. Weight scope-of-work fit at 30-40%, past outcomes and references at 20-25%, pricing and match structure at 15-20%, MWBE and compliance at 10-15%, and Implementation Plan alignment at 10-15%. Vendors respond better to a published rubric than to a black-box evaluation.

04 / How partners should respond — the 7 evidence categories that win

If you are a CBO, enrichment vendor, or arts partner responding to a CCSPP RFP, these are the seven things a serious LEA committee will actually score you on. Deliver on all seven and you move to the finalist round.

Evidence 1 — Site-based proof points with named outcomes

Not marketing language. Specific examples: at XYZ Elementary in 2025-26, we ran a K-5 media arts track for 42 pupils across a 12-week Fall block; participants averaged 87% attendance; the site’s APR showed a 6% year-over-year improvement in expanded-learning enrollment. Named LEA, named outcome, named data point.

Evidence 2 — Pillar-fit statement

Name which pillar(s) your work supports (typically Pillar 4 for enrichment partners) and how it connects to the LEA’s Implementation Plan strategies. Quote the LEA’s own plan language if you have access. “We support Extended Learning Time and Opportunities by delivering K-8 media arts and coding programming across four sites during the ELO-P block, aligned to Implementation Plan Strategy 4.3.”

Evidence 3 — Credentialing and compliance package on file

MWBE certification (with cert number), DVBE / SBE where applicable. Insurance certificates. Background-check policies for all staff (Live Scan, TB, mandated-reporter, CPR). Staff-hiring standards. A one-page compliance summary that the LEA’s procurement office can attach to your file without follow-up.

Evidence 4 — Funding-lane literacy

Name every state funding stream your programming is eligible under: CCSPP, ELO-P, Prop 28 (for §8820-eligible arts programming), 21st CCLC/ASES, Title I, Title IV-A, LREBG. Explain briefly which of your programming maps to which fund. This tells the LEA you understand the braiding conversation they are already having internally.

Evidence 5 — APR outcome alignment

Name specifically which APR indicators your work will move. CCSPP APR indicators include attendance, chronic absenteeism, expanded-learning participation, family engagement, and school-climate metrics. If you are an enrichment partner, your best case is around attendance and expanded-learning participation. Don’t overpromise chronic absenteeism reduction unless you have prior-site data to prove it.

Evidence 6 — Braided-funding invoicing model

Show an example: this monthly invoice bills 60% against CCSPP Pillar 4, 30% against ELO-P (for the after-school block), 10% against Prop 28 (for the two weekly media arts sessions that map to §8820). Line-item, session-level, resource-code-tagged. LEAs that have to answer to CCSPP auditors AND ELO-P auditors AND Prop 28 auditors will heavily prefer partners whose invoicing model minimizes their audit exposure.

Evidence 7 — References from other CCSPP grantee LEAs

Three named references from other CCSPP grantee sites, with contact information for the community-schools coordinator or program officer who can speak to your delivery. If you have not worked with a CCSPP grantee, use adjacent references: ELO-P coordinator, principal, or district services officer at LEAs that have similar demographic and site profiles.

05 / The five most common LEA mistakes when issuing partner RFPs

Asking for K-12 generalist partners instead of tier-specific. A K-5 elementary partner and a 6-12 secondary partner have different curricula, different credential requirements, and different pricing. Bundling them dilutes both. Fix: issue separate RFPs by tier or clearly split the scope within one RFP.
Missing pillar alignment in the scope. RFPs that say “enrichment programming” without naming Pillar 4 and referencing the Implementation Plan invite vendor responses that could serve any afterschool program in the state. Fix: cite the Implementation Plan strategy number in the scope.
No published rubric or scoring criteria. Partners respond thinner when they cannot see the rubric. Fix: publish the rubric with weights in the RFP itself.
No match-documentation guidance. Partners will offer in-kind match badly if the RFP does not specify what qualifies. Fix: state up-front what in-kind match documentation you will accept (per-hour valuation, staff credentials, market-rate comparability).
Skipping the APR alignment ask. LEA APRs suffer when partners produce outcomes on their own terms and not on APR indicators. Fix: require partners to state which APR indicators they will move and how they will produce the data.

06 / The five most common partner response mistakes

Leading with curriculum instead of pillar fit. Every partner leads with “our curriculum is amazing.” The winning partners lead with “here is how our work supports Pillar 4 and Strategy 4.3 of your Implementation Plan.” Fix: read the Implementation Plan before responding, and lead with pillar alignment.
Ignoring the APR outcome indicators. Partners who cannot name which APR indicators their work will move signal to the LEA that they have not read the CCSPP framework. Fix: study the CCSPP APR data structure (UCLA Center for Community Schooling maintains the visualization portal) before responding.
No braided-funding literacy. Partners who cannot invoice across CCSPP + ELO-P + Prop 28 + Title I in a way the LEA can audit-defend lose to partners who can. Fix: prepare a sample braided-invoice template as a response attachment.
Not naming MWBE certification (if you have one). MWBE-certified partners commonly bury this in the compliance section instead of leading with it. Fix: name it on page one of the response.
Vague references or no references from CCSPP-adjacent LEAs. Three named references beat ten unnamed testimonials. Fix: get three references with names, titles, and permission to be contacted, ideally from LEAs with similar demographics.

07 / What a defensible CCSPP-partner scope of work looks like on paper

Whether you are the LEA writing the scope or the partner accepting it, a defensible SOW has these eight elements. If any are missing, the SOW is exposed to CCSPP audit questions in Year 2 or Year 3.

Named funded sites and CCSPP cohort year
Pillar(s) supported and Implementation Plan strategy references
Population served with grade bands and enrollment estimate
Weekly session count, per-site staffing model, and annual instructional hours
Match documentation approach (what counts, how it is valued)
Braiding structure (which sessions bill against which funds, coded to which resource lines)
APR alignment (indicators supported, data-production approach)
Deliverables and reporting cadence (monthly attendance rosters, quarterly outcome memos, annual family-facing showcase or artifact)

08 / This post is for you if

You are a district community-schools coordinator or director issuing your first CCSPP partner RFP for 2026-27.

You are a superintendent’s office or CBO liaison reviewing partner RFP responses and want a scoring framework that separates real partners from thin ones.

You are a community-based organization, K-8 enrichment vendor, arts partner, or family-services provider responding to CCSPP RFPs and want to know what a winning response looks like.

You are a principal or site-based coordinator at a CCSPP-funded site trying to figure out who is on your Extended Learning Time partner list and why.

You are a Cohort 4 grantee going through Year 1 implementation for the first time and setting up your partner infrastructure.

09 / What we’d love to do next

If you are a CCSPP grantee LEA writing your 2026-27 partner RFP, or a CBO / enrichment partner responding to one, here is the specific ask.

Give us 20 minutes. On a call. That is it.

In that 20 minutes we will walk your Implementation Plan (if you are the LEA) or your response draft (if you are the partner), sketch the pillar-fit and APR-alignment language, review the braided-funding invoicing approach, and share honestly how we would structure the SOW if we were on your side of the table. You leave the call with a one-page CCSPP partner RFP scorecard in your inbox, yours to keep, use, or share with your board or your team — regardless of whether we ever work together.

Book the 20-Minute CCSPP RFP Call →

Sources and further reading

California Education Code §§8900-8902 — Community Schools legislative reporting requirement — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov EDC §§8900-8902
CDE — California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP) main page — cde.ca.gov/ci/gs/hs/ccspp.asp
CDE — CCSPP Cohort 4 Implementation Grant Profile (ID 6348, 2025-30) — cde.ca.gov/fg/fo/profile.asp?id=6348
CDE — CCSPP Cohort 4 Implementation Grant RFA (2025-30) — cde.ca.gov/fg/fo/r17/ccsppig25rfa.asp
CDE — CCSPP Cohort 4 Implementation Grant FAQ — cde.ca.gov/fg/fo/r17/ccsppig25faq.asp
CDE — CCSPP Frequently Asked Questions (Program-wide) — cde.ca.gov/fg/fo/r17/ccspp20faq.asp
CDE — CCSPP 2025 Legislative Report Executive Summary — cde.ca.gov/ci/gs/hs/ccspp25execsummary.asp
CDE — Community Schools Superintendent’s Initiative — cde.ca.gov/eo/in/ts-communityschools.asp
CDE — CCSPP Formative Evaluation RFP (state-issued template reference) — cde.ca.gov/fg/fo/r17/ccsppformeval24rfp.asp
Learning Policy Institute — Funding Community Schools in California — learningpolicyinstitute.org
Learning Policy Institute — CA Community Schools Partnership Program Transformational Opportunity — learningpolicyinstitute.org
Learning Policy Institute — Community Schools Impact on Student Outcomes: Evidence From California — learningpolicyinstitute.org
Learning Policy Institute — Community Schools Forward Outcomes and Indicators — learningpolicyinstitute.org (PDF)
UCLA Center for Community Schooling — State Center — communityschooling.gseis.ucla.edu
UCLA CCSPP APR Data Visualization Portal — communityschooling.gseis.ucla.edu/ccspp-apr-visualization
CSLX (Community Schools Learning Exchange) — CCSPP Hub — cslx.org
CSLX — The CCSPP RFA is Out: Four Strategies to Kickstart Your Application — cslx.org
LACOE — Apply for CCSPP Cohort 4 Announcement — lacoe.edu
California Budget & Policy Center — CA Community Schools Initiative Progress and Impact — calbudgetcenter.org
Coalition for Community Schools — Results Framework — communityschools.org (PDF)
Kodely — The ELO-P and Prop 28 Braid — kodely.io/blog
Kodely — ELOP Allowable Expenditures Checklist — kodely.io/blog

This piece was published by The Kodely Blog. Kodely is a MWBE-certified K-8 STEM and arts enrichment provider serving 40+ California districts across CCSPP, ELO-P, Prop 28, LREBG, and 21st CCLC funding lanes. We respond to CCSPP partner RFPs with pillar-mapped scopes of work, braided-funding invoicing (session-level line items coded to CCSPP, ELO-P, Prop 28, or other resource codes), and APR-aligned outcome reporting. If you are building a 2026-27 CCSPP partner RFP or responding to one, we are happy to have a conversation. This post is field-guide reference material, not legal advice.

CCSPP Community-Partner RFP — Frequently Asked Questions

What is the California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP)?

CCSPP is a $4.1B California Prop 98 investment funding LEAs to establish or expand community schools built around 4 pillars: integrated support services, family and community engagement, collaborative leadership, and extended learning opportunities.

What should a CCSPP partner RFP include?

A strong CCSPP partner RFP includes: pillar-specific scope of work (especially Pillar 4 extended learning), session-level invoicing requirements, supplement-not-supplant memos per fund, 33% match documentation, and clear accountability to the community-schools plan submitted to CDE.

Who is eligible for CCSPP Cohort 4?

Cohort 4 (2025-30) is the final cohort of CCSPP Implementation Grants, awarded via the July 2025 California State Board of Education process. Awards fund 5 years of implementation with grants up to $500K per site per year.

How does CCSPP Pillar 4 (Extended Learning) work?

Pillar 4 requires that community schools offer enriched afterschool, summer, and intersession programming that connects to the school day. Partner vendors covering Pillar 4 should coordinate with ELO-P and 21st CCLC funding at the site level.

What is the CCSPP 33% match requirement?

CCSPP Implementation Grantees must document a 33% match of the grant amount. In-kind match (staff time, facility use, partner services) counts. Match documentation is reviewed during CDE monitoring.

When does CCSPP funding sunset?

Cohort 4 grants run 2025-2030. There is no scheduled Cohort 5. Grantee LEAs should build sustainability into their Year-1 plan, particularly for Pillar 4 partnership contracts.

ELO-P 9-hour compliance and minimum-day math — The ELO-P 9-Hour Compliance Trap
California afterschool vendor evaluation checklist — 9 Green Flags in a California Afterschool Vendor
ELO-P compliance trip wires for coordinators — 8 California ELO-P Compliance Trip Wires

About the author

Sri Akash Kalimili is the founder of Kodely, a MWBE-certified K-8 STEM and arts enrichment provider currently operating at 40+ California districts across ELO-P, Prop 28, CCSPP, and LREBG. Kodely delivers school-day, afterschool, and non-schoolday coverage under one roster, with itemized session-level invoicing coded to specific funding lanes and supplement-not-supplant memos included in every scope of work.

This post is a working operator’s checklist based on what we run daily at California district partners. It is not legal or fiscal advice. Every statute citation has been verified against primary sources (leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, CDE.ca.gov, EAAP.ca.gov). Always verify current law with your CBO and district counsel.

The CCSPP Community-Partner RFP: What Grantee LEAs Are Really Asking For in 2026-27 (and How Enrichment Partners Should Respond)