INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATIONAL

Center for family, school and community for more than 25 years, iel has assisted schools, communities, and other key stakeholders in building intentional partnerships that achieve better results for every young person, from early childhood to adulthood. The center's research, policy, and network development focuses on: "identifying and conducting research on school-community connections; "cultivating networks and opportunities for local collaboratives to improve practice, share successes, and improve results for children, families, and communities; and, "developing policies at all levels of government that support joint action to improve outcomes for children, families, and communities. Major initiatives of the center for family, school and community include: the coalition for community schools, in operation since 1997, is a national alliance that brings together school and community leaders to advocate for schools as centers of their communities, with purposeful results-focused partnerships at their heart. With the support of a steering committee representing education, youth development, higher education, child and family services, and local government, iel has helped to make community schools 'central to reform' according to former u.s. Secretary of education, arne duncan. More than 150 communities now have major community school's efforts and are part of a learning community of local initiatives. Through the coalition, iel is leading efforts to have federal and state policy be more responsive to the community school strategy. Together with its coalition partners, iel has developed a results-framework and evaluation toolkit for community schools and conducts research on the effectiveness of community schools and how they are financed. The coalition for community schools also hosts an annual conference which attracts a diverse array of practitioners, advocates, and policymakers looking to deepen partnerships between school and community. District leaders network on family and community engagement (fce) - the district leaders network on family and community engagement (dln) is a group of 225 individuals in district-level leadership positions primarily responsible for the oversight of our district's family and community engagement (fce) initiatives. Dln is a peer-driven knowledge network designed to engage members as both experts and learners through a national structure to support member capacity building activities. The network is unique in purpose, function and design and is grounded in the belief that through dln, members can increase their collective capacity to implement a systemic approach to family and community engagement, resulting in more consistent practice across districts, greater sustainability, and measurable impact on student outcomes and school improvement. Membership is granted exclusively to those who are tasked with oversight of their district's engagement efforts. Community schools x family engagement conference - csxfe: iel has hosted annual national conferences for over 20 years, which have continued to grow in attendance. Most recently, the coalition for community schools and family and community engagement has created a joint conference, with atlanta, ga, being the home of the event in june 2024. With more than 4,700 attendees, this was iel's largest conference to date. Csxfe 9s designed to catalyze collaboration and action through community school and family engagement professionals and advocates with a renewed commitment. People from across the globe who believe all children deserve a safe place to live and opportunities to learn and thrive will come together to discuss practices, partnerships, policies, and provisions that transform systems that achieve and sustain results.