The Parramore Education and Innovation District: Case Study Strategies for Successful Emerging School-Community-University Partnerships

• In Event: Challenges and Hopes of University-Community Partnerships: Narratives of Community Engagement as Ethical Responsibilities

Abstract

1. Objectives
This case study examines the work of the Parramore Education and Innovation District (PEID), a multi-partner effort with an ambitious vision to ensure that all members of a historically significant and underserved African American neighborhood earn a postsecondary credential within a generation. Using a collective impact framework (Kania and Kramer, 2011) and foregrounding the critical equity components and focus on systems change outlined by Wolff et al. (2017), we analyze the conditions necessary to establish an effective and mutually beneficial school-community-university partnership.
2. Collective Impact and Emerging School-Community-University Partnerships
This case study describes critical early phases of a collective impact project to establish effective partnerships across a diverse network of educational providers spanning the preK-20 continuum. Planning and early implementation activities consisted of community asset mapping, the establishment of governing structures to enable and support collaborative decision-making, and the formation of working committees. We further describe how project participants define, conceptualize, execute and measure the impact of their collective work.
3. Data Sources
Data include artifacts from working committees (e.g., meeting notes and minutes, photos of brainstorming and ideation sessions), feedback surveys, personal reflections from the backbone organization staff, impact data from pilot projects, as well as data collected by a third party evaluator, including interviews, and focus groups. Collectively, the data provide a rich narrative of the early stages of collective impact work.
4. Results
We discuss components of the collective impact framework and the conditions necessary to advance those components in a school-community-university partnership, in addition to sharing reflections from partnership participants and how they understand and advance a collective work. Panelists will highlight:
a. strategies to support development of a common agenda, including use of participatory asset mapping that lifts community voices and leads to community centered interventions;
b. strategies to support development of shared measurement systems and metrics, including development of a multi-institution data lake that includes partners across the formal and informal educational spaces to allow cross-organization analysis, collaboration, and coordination;
c. advancement of mutually reinforcing activities, including development of collaborative working committees and early efforts to align interests, resources, and activities to address community and educational needs;
d. strategies to support continuous communication, including development of organizational and collaborative infrastructure. Panelists will discuss the importance, value, and effects of deep integration and investment in community spaces, including participation in community meetings and meetings of partner organizations;
e. establishment of a backbone organization that is culturally competent and effectively engages hard to reach populations. Panelists will also discuss how the backbone organization leverages the urban campus as a place-based asset to advance collective work and connection to community and partners.
5. Scholarly Significance
This case study uses the collective impact framework to offer insight and strategies for developing school-community-university partnerships that advance equity and systems change. The audience will learn strategies for planning partnerships, lifting, and evaluating new initiatives, including ways to ensure broad, inclusive representation, participation, and action from community members, organizational partners, and other key stakeholders.

Authors

• Pamela Sissi Carroll, University of Central Florida

• Ryan Nicholas Goodwin, University of Central Florida

• DeShawn Chapman, University of Central Florida

• Zoe Colon, University of Central Florida

• Katie Philp

• Wendy Ivory, Academic Center for Excellence (Orange County Public Schools)

• Allison Kirby, Jones High School (Orange County Public Schools)