Center for Access & Engagement - San Mateo County Office of Education

The San Mateo County Office of Education’s Center for Access and Engagement is a team of skilled professionals that collaborate with districts and charter schools to nurture, cultivate, promote, and expand equitable and inclusive practices.

About the Center

The foundation of the Center’s work is built on California’s Statewide Task Force on Special Education’s 2015 report One System: Reforming Education to Serve ALL Students, which envisions one coherent system where educational teams work together seamlessly to identify and address ALL students’ academic and social-emotional strengths and needs. In 2021, an analysis of the progress made since the release of the 2015 report was captured in California’s Progress Toward Achieving ONE SYSTEM: Reforming Education to Serve ALL Students. The Center for Access and Engagement supports educational systems in their efforts to ignite transformational change in schools, moving these recommendations from inspiration to action.

Why Create the Center?

Now more than ever, educators are expressing an unprecedented level of need for reimagining student supports. Partnering with the Center for Access and Engagement provides an additional integrated and aligned layer of intervention, resulting in improved student outcomes, increased staff capacity, and a more positive and inclusive school culture.

How Can the Center Help?

Existing silos within current educational systems can create significant barriers to school success. In breaking down silos, educators can effectively identify students’ needs with a whole child approach that provides academic, social-emotional, and behavioral interventions across all school environments.

The Center for Access and Engagement provides teams with the tools and technical assistance they need to create one cohesive system, customizing professional learning and implementation plans for school and district teams throughout San Mateo County.

What Does the Center Offer?

The Center for Access and Engagement offers targeted program consultation, customized training plans, implementation support, inclusive student leadership development, and family engagement coordination.

	Program Consultation Interdisciplinary needs assessment Program design and refinement Multi-year, long-range planning
Customized Training Plans Individualized professional learning Resource development Systems alignment	Implementation Support Implementation plan design Ongoing coaching Follow-up training
Inclusive Student Leadership Peer leadership development Culture and community building Student education presentations	Family Engagement Family education offerings Communication and collaboration plans Trust and rapport building activities