How to Create and Integrate School-Community Partnerships

I’ve come to realize that schools today cannot accomplish everything that is expected or solve challenging problems without rethinking the structures and frameworks that govern their work. If the past three years have taught me anything, it's that the intersectionality of school with family and community organizations can be a powerful force for change that can reshape the outcomes for high school students and middle school students alike. It’s only through the combination of these three environmental domains that we can deliver a multi-tiered system of support capable of meeting the diverse needs of each student.

During these three years, while serving as the Executive Director of Student Success and Wellness in a large urban school district in Colorado, our teams focused on practices and practical advice to bring these school-community partnerships to fruition. We sought the best practices for fostering inclusive involvement, shared knowledge, and strong relationships that would lead us to agreed-upon targeted outcomes we could successfully implement.

Our need for such practices was never greater than during the fentanyl epidemic in January 2022, which followed the devastating COVID pandemic. Tragically, multiple students overdosed on campuses across our district, resulting in the death of a student, while many others needed to be resuscitated by school leaders, SROs, school nurses, and EMTs. Through this trying time, our team came to understand one universal truth—no one person, school, family, or community-based organization could solve this problem alone, nor were any fully equipped to make a meaningful impact on their own.

Learning how and what practices school systems deploy to overcome paralyzing problems such as a lack of caregiver engagement, student learning challenges, community-wide food insecurity, or a fentanyl epidemic can be the difference between why some schools form meaningful and effective school-community partnerships that solve problems while others languish in the problems of today and yesterday.

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Creating School Community Partners

Since joining CharacterStrong, I’ve met educators, researchers, and PreK-12 thought leaders who have worked through similar system-wide challenges, requiring them to analyze the interconnected nature of schools, families, and partner organizations. Together, we’ve outlined a whole child framework rooted in Nurturing Environments.

Nurturing Environments can be distilled down to an ecological system that results in the nesting of three environmental domains: School, Family, and Community. Each is a microcosm of the other, reflecting a shared vision and common goal for student success and emotional well-being.

More clearly, ecological systems are different environments that students, educators, caregivers, and community members encounter across their life span, impacting them to varying degrees. How and to what degree these environmental domains affect change on a system or an individual is where we hope to bring forward meaningful practices educators can successfully implement to increase the likelihood of successful whole child outcomes, including academic success and emotional development.

Creating a Nurturing Environment

The three environmental domains (school, family, and community) can be fostered through these four ingredients, creating one Nurturing Environment:

Relational Trust is fostered by creating environments that:

• Ensure ongoing and open communication with families and community-based organizations about the inner workings of the school and its programs and interventions.
• See family, school, and community partners as essential supports for student outcomes.
• Operate with adequate resources and infrastructure support.

Inclusive Involvement is fostered by creating environments that:

• Honor and recognize families’ existing knowledge, skills, and forms of engagement.
• Invite families and community partners to share their daily routines, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, as well as the most pressing issues in their community, by engaging in a dialogue with teachers and site staff.
• Establish, maintain, and restore family and community-school partnerships.

Learning Community that Drives Efficacy is fostered by creating environments that:

• Focus on building the intellectual, social, and human capital of stakeholders engaged in the program.
• Bring families and staff together for shared learning and create collective learning environments that foster peer learning and communication networks among families and staff.
• Create learning sessions where educators, families, and community partners can receive training on skills and tools, practice what they’ve learned, and receive feedback and coaching from each other, peers, and facilitators.

Shared Targeted Outcomes is fostered by creating environments that:

• Welcome families and community partners into the decision-making process.
• Connect families and community partners to the teaching and learning goals for the students.
• Share an understanding of the outcomes each group is seeking and co-create common goals that lead to evidence-based practices implemented with a high level of success.

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Community Partners and Whole Child Success

Nurturing Environments are the core of Whole Child Success. Through thoughtful, intentional best practices, educators can begin to develop high-quality environments for students that extend beyond the classroom walls. Families will regain trust in their local schools, engage more fully while understanding the available supports, and seek opportunities to provide quality feedback to school leaders. Community connections will strengthen as partners find common ground and like-minded goals, leading to safer and more welcoming communities that tackle problems alongside their school and family partners.

As we rethink our frameworks alongside schools, we believe Nurturing Environments are key to solving the future challenges in K-12 education. Here at CharacterStrong, we will continue to refine our offerings related to these environmental domains to help educators build strong relationships and achieve successful partnerships, ultimately leading to improved academic outcomes and student achievement.

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