George Lucas Educational Foundation
Edutopia

Community Partnerships

Learn and share ideas about how to engage caring individuals, organizations, and businesses to help schools with resources, mentors, internships, and more.

  • ‘The Human Connection Is Everything’: Dave Eggers on What He’s Learned From Tutoring Students

    A new book details how a tutoring center movement that Eggers started almost 20 years ago works to spark students’ creativity.
    Tom Berger

  • How to Improve Students With Disabilities’ Sense of Belonging

    By focusing on play, schools are finding ways to bring students with and without disabilities together, to the benefit of both groups.
    Emelina Minero

  • A More Engaging Back to School Night

    Intentionally fostering interactions among teachers, parents, and community partners helped one school create a more inviting event.
    Maurice J. Elias

  • Building a 21st-Century Learning Space

    A community raised $6 million to construct an innovative 30,000-square-foot facility complete with makerspaces and learning labs.

  • Building a Culture of Kindness With a Day of Service

    When Maryland middle school students spend a day focusing on helping others, they see their own capacity to make a difference in their community.

  • Running a Business in School

    Students learn skills like maintaining inventory, marketing, and scheduling while working in a cafe as part of a business class.

  • 5 Ways to Stop Bullying and Move into Action

    With daily news reports about the devastating impact on students who have been relentlessly bullied, teachers find themselves on the front line in addressing bullying and intolerance. It is time to move into action. Not In Our School offers solutions-based strategies and tools for change to a network of schools that are working to create safe, inclusive and accepting climates.
    Becki Cohn-Vargas

  • 5 Steps to Better School/Community Collaboration

    A parent and community organizer shares some resources and great ideas, including the creation of a resource map and connecting with subject matter experts to connect to curriculum.
    Brendan O'Keefe

  • 5 Ways to Combat Classroom Isolation

    Looking outside your classroom walls can help students develop a global perspective—and refresh your teaching.
    Michael Dunlea

  • 3 Tech Tools to Expand Your Network of Community Partners

    Finding the right community partners can be tough, but these free platforms make the process simple and save time.
    Julia Freeland Fisher

  • How Can High-Poverty Schools Engage Families and the Community?

    High-poverty schools can involve students' families through home visits and by joining the community's safety net to provide social and medical services for those in need.
    William Parrett and Kathleen Budge

  • The Importance of Community Involvement in Schools

    Family and community involvement play essential roles in the success of schools, explains blogger Anne O'Brien.
    Anne OBrien

  • Empowering Kids to Be Part of the Solution

    Giving elementary students a project in their community provides a real-world application for their content learning.

  • Using Community Challenges for Learning

    Find tips on how to collect real-world problems for your students and a framework to start and monitor their projects.
    Cathleen Beachboard

  • Showcasing the Work of Professional Scientists

    Students can invite local scientists to present their work at school to raise awareness of how new developments affect people’s lives.
    John Dorroh