Toolkit: Build Highly Engaged Family, Community, & Business Partnerships

A Public Education Promise Toolkit

Principle 4: Build Highly Engaged Family, Community, & Business Partnerships

Establishing authentic, reciprocal partnerships that engage families, community organizations, and business and industry as co-educators—expanding learning, strengthening trust, and aligning education to real-world opportunities.

Highly engaged family, community, and business partnerships advance a central promise of public education: preparing students for meaningful participation in a complex, interconnected world.

When families are trusted collaborators, communities are learning partners, and businesses help shape future pathways, students experience learning that is relevant, supported, and connected to real life.

Through intentional systems, shared responsibility, and reciprocal relationships, districts can strengthen trust, expand opportunity, and ensure every learner is supported to thrive.

This Toolkit will Help District Leaders:

• Clarify what meaningful family, community, and business partnerships look like in practice;
• Design systems that support shared ownership and long-term collaboration; and
• Leverage practical tools and case studies to strengthen implementation across diverse contexts.

Core Understandings:

• Student learning and well-being are strengthened when families, communities, and employers are active partners in education.
• Trust, transparency, and two-way communication are foundational to sustainable engagement.
• Effective partnerships are reciprocal, creating value for students, schools, and partners alike.
• Engagement strategies must be responsive to community context, culture, and assets.
• Strong partnerships create coherence between academic learning, career readiness, civic engagement, and lifelong success.

Key Insights from Workgroup Participants:

• Family Engagement Is Most Effective When It Is Proactive and Relational
• Community Partnerships Strengthen Relevance, Belonging, and Civic Identity
• Business and Industry Partnerships Connect Learning to Postsecondary and Workforce Pathways
• Sustainable Engagement Requires Clear Systems and Accountability

Read the Full Executive Summary

Toolkit Resources:

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  Self-Assessment

  Build Highly Engaged Community, Family, & Business Partnerships

  Use this assessment to support reflection and conversations in your district around building intentional systems of support and shared accountability.

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  Messaging Guide

  Using Words That Work to Amplify the Role of Public Education

  Research-based strategies for school leaders to build trust, restore confidence, and strengthen support for America’s public schools.

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  Case Studies & Examples

  Build Highly Engaged Community, Family, & Business Partnerships

  Examples of how school districts are building intentional systems of support and shared accountability.

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  Video

  Faith Based Partners & Brevard Public Schools

  A case study in a particularly successful partnership between Georgianna United Methodist Church on Merritt Island and Cambridge Elementary in Cocoa, Florida.

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  Superintendent Perspective

  Leadership with the Lights On: Inviting Feedback That Fuels Growth

  You already know that feedback will come whether you ask for it or not. So why not lead the process?

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  Article

  Moving from Platitudes to a Promise

  How community collaboration shaped a school district’s strategic roadmap to capture families’ aspirations.

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  Blog

  Transform Student & Parent Voice for Trust, Engagement and Impact

  From voice to partnership. From feedback to connection. This is how school systems build with students and families, not around them.

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  Article

  Toward Transformational Engagement

  Moving beyond the transactional levels of parent involvement into authentic levels of parental participation.

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  Report

  Knowing and Responding to Your Community Through Resonant Leadership

  Key competencies of resonant leadership and the importance of resonant leadership for superintendent wellbeing and school culture.

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  Toolkit

  Youth Apprenticeships

  A collection of resources for administrators to advocate for and build apprenticeship programs of their own.