This part of the handbook addresses community school partnerships as a vehicle for bringing together a variety of agencies to support students and families. Since their inception, community schools have served to interrupt cycles of inequity experienced by the most vulnerable and underserved student populations. They are intentionally designed to provide all students access to equitable learning opportunities, regardless of their life circumstances or obstacles associated with living in marginalized communities. The significant role community schools play was articulated by the Community Schools Forward project which offers the following definition: “The Community Schools strategy transforms a school into a place where educators, local community members, families, and students work together to strengthen conditions for student learning and healthy development” (Community Schools Forward, 2023, para.1). With this definition in mind, authors framed their discussions around the ways in which SUPs engage with community schools to leverage both school and community resources and strengthen educational systems.

Grounded in the belief that teachers are central to the task of educating young people, the chapters in this part posit that the improvement of any system of education will necessitate attention to the role, position, and training of teachers. Though emanating from a unified position, the chapters in this part offer a variety of lenses through which it is possible to view the work of teaching and learning to teach within partnership settings.

The first two chapters in this part focus on the preparation of future teachers with an explicit emphasis on developing teachers who are connected to the communities they serve and committed to a stance of social justice and equity. Cross and colleagues use a critical lens to explore the foundations and evolution of teacher residencies as a form of teacher preparation. Their chapter summarizes four reports about teacher residencies published between 2008 and 2022 and exposes the underlying structures that contributed to some teacher residencies perpetuating the very inequities they were designed to alleviate. This emphasis on critical pedagogies and justice-oriented education highlights the importance of classroom teaching that is progressing towards equity, contextually grounded, and responsive to the local community.

Part VII of the handbook explores funding, policy, and politics as a means to build and sustain school–university partnerships (SUPs). How partnerships evolve over time involves many factors. At the heart of partnership work is a shared vision and commitment to a set of values that support mutually beneficial outcomes. Even with the best of intentions, too often these qualities are not enough to move SUPs beyond an initial stage of development. While these elements are critical to partnership success, it’s important to acknowledge that unless funding, policy, and politics are in place to support SUPs in their efforts, barriers will derail their ability to operate and organize in new ways.

In this part, seven individual authors and teams of authors explored inquiry and innovation in school–university partnership (SUP) research. Inquiry is central to professional development schools (PDSs), and has even been dubbed the “signature pedagogy” (Yendol-Hoppey & Franco, 2014) of PDS. Specifically, the authors in this part of the handbook explore the use of inquiry and action research within PDS and SUP research systematically through studying years of scholarly work. Several of them also explore the meaning of innovation in PDS and SUP research – however, as they demonstrate, sometimes this innovation is slow, or not particularly novel. These chapters were grouped together to connect research to innovation, and illustrate potential paths forward for scholars working in this field.

Leadership at all levels is pivotal as school–university partnerships (SUPs) seek to cultivate a culture of collaboration. Leaders across roles – be they school principals, university faculty and administrators, or teacher leaders – act as linchpins who not only facilitate the flow of knowledge and resources between institutions, but also engender a sense of shared vision and purpose. Leadership requires navigating the complexities of differing institutional norms, aligning diverse stakeholder interests, and fostering an environment conducive to collaborative innovation. The complex endeavor of developing dynamic leadership and robust partnerships between schools and universities underscores the pivotal work of partnerships seeking simultaneous renewal. This part of the handbook includes four compelling chapters that delineate both conceptual understanding of the work of leaders as well as the practical ramifications of leadership within SUPs.

By showcasing examples of scholarship about school–university partnerships (SUPs) in contexts other than the continental United States, this part of the handbook aims to expand the frame of our vision and enable us to see a more complete picture of the possibilities that might emerge from SUPs. A broader perspective can bring our own context more clearly into focus, enabling us to see subtleties that might have remained hidden and making some well-known attributes look surprisingly new, for good or for ill. In addition, as we adjust our gaze to take in both the similarities and differences between our own context and others, we may also begin to see that these variations do not exist in a single binary plane (us and others), but that the similarities and differences abound within and among SUPs in “other” places as well. Thus, we hope that these chapters will be viewed holistically, as a small peek at the vast potential of SUPs to improve education in many different ways, in many different places.