School & Community Partnership Toolkit Overview
Our Partnership Toolkit enables collaboration between schools and community partners
Schools cannot meet the needs of King County’s children on their own. We believe that a full range of services and supports are needed to ensure that every child reaches his or her full potential. These services and supports are most effective when they are comprehensive, complementary, and well coordinated; when, in effect, they come together in an ecosystem. For more information about our vision for the partnership ecosystem, read our Partnership Ecosystem Introduction.
About the Toolkit
We have compiled a set of tools designed to improve coordination between educators and community partners working toward holistic student success. This toolkit draws from a number of sources: most notably, we would like to acknowledge a similar project undertaken by the Oakland Unified School District, which provided inspiration for much of the content and organization of this resource. For a brief introduction to the toolkit and a few strategies and tools, check out this Quick Connections webinar:
How to use the Toolkit
Our online toolkit is organized into five sections (Assessing Readiness, Mapping Needs and Assets, Establishing Partnership, Working Together, and Evaluating Programs). Contents include:
- Self-assessment rubrics related to core partnership features
- Tip sheets covering a range of partnership activities
- Templates and planning tools to put learning into practice
Resources can be used alone or in combination, and most can be adapted to suit a more specific purpose. You can find a printer-friendly version of the entire toolkit in our Resource Center.
To hear directly from people who are putting these strategies and tools into practice, watch one or more of the recordings from Quick Connections – Partnership Stories & Strategies. This series highlights strategies and tools to build and strengthen school-community partnerships and is co-sponsored by School’s Out Washington and YDEKC.