2018 Partnership District Award Winners

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Five districts earned 2018 Partnership District Awards from the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS) at Johns Hopkins University. They are recognized for excellence in organizing their leadership for partnerships and for helping school-based Action Teams for Partnerships (ATPs) develop, implement, evaluate, and continually improve research-based, goal-linked programs of school, family, and community partnerships.

The leaders for partnerships are working to ensure that all families are welcome in all schools. They are guiding schools’ ATPs to develop programs and practices of family and community involvement that help improve student achievement in specific subjects, attendance, behavior, health, postsecondary planning, and on other indicators of success in school.  They are helping schools build their capacities to work well with their own students’ families.

In their award applications, district leaders for partnerships described district-level leadership activities that increased awareness of family and community involvement, aligned actions for partnerships with other district policies for school improvement, and extended family and community engagement in other ways.  They also submitted evidence of how they directly facilitate schools’ ATPs to strengthen school-based programs of family and community engagement. The activities are included in their Leadership Plans for Partnerships (also submitted).  Repeat award-winning districts must show how they improved their programs over time and scaled up the number and/or quality of school-based partnership programs.  The districts’ work is guided by the NNPS book School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, Fourth Edition (2019, Corwin Press).

The reports from award-winning districts show that leaders can develop and continually improve essential elements of partnership programs: leadership, teamwork, written plans, facilitated action, funding, evaluations, support from colleagues, and networking with NNPS and others. Some district-level leadership activities are included in Promising Partnership Practices 2018.