Collaborative member Jonathan Raymond, president of the Stuart Foundation and former superintendent of Sacramento City Unified School District, participated in a panel about implementing California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) that was hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California. Raymond described LCFF as an opportunity to reassess and co-create the purpose of education in California with students, families, and community members. To that end, he considers authentic relationship building across stakeholder groups to be at the center of this work. In Raymond’s experience as a superintendent, he saw that these relationships can facilitate the needed shift in accountability from a punitive focus to an orientation toward continuous improvement and teamwork. He suggested that the state, county offices of education, and the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence assist districts in developing authentic relationships with other stakeholders and shining a light on best practices from which others can learn. Raymond observed that his collaborations with networks of other California districts during his time as superintendent were critical to discovering and replicating best practices, and argued that the state should incentivize others to do the same to avoid reinventing the wheel.