Chan Zuckerberg Initiative awards $1.1 million to OCEAN-Anaheim Unified
​High School District research partnership

The grant will allow OCEAN to evaluate the programs that AUHSD implements to help promote student agency, self efficacy towards academics and career development and sense of belonging in school.

By Marc-Anthony Rosas
​December 20, 2022
​
​The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) has awarded a $1.1 million grant to the University of California, Irvine School of Education’s Orange County Educational Advancement Network (OCEAN) in research partnership with the Anaheim Unified High School District (AUHSD).

A major goal for the partnership is to highlight the practices that districts might pursue to help promote student agency, self efficacy towards academics and career development, and sense of belonging in school. The project will highlight and assess AUHSD’s innovative practices – including evaluating its career pathways program, civic learning and senior capstone curriculum, and ePortfolio practices. 

Collaborating with co-principal investigators June Ahn, School of Education professor and director of OCEAN, and Frances Contreras, School of Education dean and professor, include AUHSD key partners Amy Kwon, Amanda Bean and Superintendent Michael Matsuda.

​OCEAN will work as a research partner, helping develop case studies for AUHSD’s programs and engage in a participatory research process to evaluate how and for whom, these promising programs, improve the learning experience for students in the community and beyond. The funding from the grant will help AUHSD continue these programs and scale its practices to schools throughout the district.