School-community partnerships take many forms, from a parent sharing career experiences during a classroom visit, to a local nonprofit offering afterschool tutoring, to employers hosting student internships. Whether informal or structured, brief or ongoing, these partnerships can connect classroom learning with real-world experiences and broaden students’ opportunities to grow, explore, and feel supported.1
To understand whether these partnerships are supporting student learning opportunities to their fullest potential, school leaders need a clear picture of what the partnerships are intended to accomplish, how they operate, and what they offer students. Studying partnerships helps school leaders identify strengths, uncover areas needing additional support, and make thoughtful decisions about how to improve or expand them.1
To support school-community partnerships efforts in West Virginia, REL Appalachia partnered with leaders who developed the Empowerment Collaborative, a whole-school reform model grounded in simulated workplace practices, real-world learning and assessment, and career-focused mindsets. Because school-community partnerships are central to the model, the leaders sought a manageable, systematic way to study how those partnerships operate and how they benefit students and community members. REL Appalachia and the Empowerment Collaborative team engaged in a step-by-step study design process and curated the resulting meeting materials into Studying School-Community Partnerships: A Systematic Design Process. This resource organizes four guiding questions with seven actionable steps to help education leaders plan a feasible, meaningful study of their school-community partnerships (figure 1).
Figure 1: Seven steps for designing a study of school-community partnerships
What do we hope to achieve through our school-community partnerships?
A study begins with clarity about purpose. School-community partnerships often aim to enrich student learning experiences, expand access to resources, strengthen family engagement, or connect students with career pathways.1 These goals can vary widely, even across partnerships within the same school. Articulating the outcomes you intend to achieve helps ensure that your partnerships are aligned with your priorities and gives your study a clear anchor (Step 1). 
Thinking intentionally about outcomes also supports shared understanding. When educators, families, and community partners operate from a common vision, the learning opportunities they create for students are more coherent and more responsive to local needs.1
What do we want to learn by studying our partnerships, and why?
Once you have a sense of what your partnerships aim to achieve, the next step is deciding what information will help you understand how well they are supporting those goals and why that information matters. Leaders might want to learn whether students are gaining exposure to new career interests, whether partners feel their contributions are meaningful, or whether certain groups of students have more or fewer opportunities to participate. Clarifying the purpose of your study (Step 2) and translating it into focused questions (Step 3) help ensure your learning is targeted, feasible, and useful.2
This reflection also helps you identify who needs to use the results, such as teachers, employers, community organizations, or families, and how the information can guide improvements. When the purpose is clear, the study becomes a tool for strengthening communication, alignment, and shared decisionmaking.3
How will we answer our study questions?
Even a simple study benefits from thoughtful planning. Leaders need to balance rigor with practicality by identifying the information they truly need and determining the most manageable way to collect it. This might involve reviewing existing records or feedback, choosing which stakeholders to hear from, and deciding on an approach, such as a brief survey or a small set of interviews, that fits your context (Step 4).
Selecting the right participants (Step 5) and planning data collection procedures (Step 6) help ensure that the information you gather reflects the experiences and perspectives that matter most.4 Thinking through logistics such as communication with participants, timing, and data collection methods makes the study more feasible and more likely to generate meaningful insights.
How will we use what we learn to strengthen our partnerships?
The purpose of studying partnerships is not simply to gather data but to use what you learn to improve student learning opportunities. Before collecting data, consider how you will analyze and share findings (Step 7) so that the information aligns with your study purpose (Step 2) and questions (Step 3). If your study includes multiple schools or community partners, exploring differences across partnerships could surface helpful insights. For example, looking at data by types of engagement, such as partnership duration (long-term versus short-term) or intensity of involvement (apprenticeship employer versus classroom presenter), could reveal nuanced patterns in how partnerships engage and benefit students.
When sharing findings, consider ways to synthesize study results. This might include summarizing patterns across partnerships, identifying bright spots where collaboration is working especially well, or highlighting areas where additional coordination or support is needed. Engaging educators, community partners, and families in reflecting on the findings can spark conversations about how to deepen collaboration, refine goals, or expand opportunities for students.5 When done well, this process can strengthen trust and lead to more responsive and sustainable partnerships.1
Ready to study your school-community partnerships?
If you and your team are ready to take a closer look at your school-community partnerships, REL Appalachia’s Studying School-Community Partnerships: A Systematic Design Process resource provides a clear, step-by-step structure to support your planning. The slide deck includes reflection prompts, examples, and practical approaches to help your school or district design a study that supports continuous improvement of school-community partnerships and enhances learning opportunities for all students.
References
1 Maier, A., Daniel, J., Oakes, J., & Lam, L. (2017). Community schools as an effective school improvement strategy: A review of the evidence. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.
2 Patton, M. Q. & Campbell-Patton, C. E. (2021). Utilization-focused evaluation (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.
3 Fitzpatrick, J. L., Sanders, J. R., Worthen, B. R., & Wingate, L. (2010). Program evaluation: Alternative approaches and practical guidelines (4th ed.). Pearson.
4 Mertens, D. M., & Wilson, A. T. (2018). Program evaluation theory and practice: A comprehensive guide (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
5 Preskill, H., & Torres, R. T. (1999). Evaluative inquiry for learning in organizations. SAGE Publications.
