Impacting Rural Middle Schools Through School-University Partnerships

Abstract

Effective family-school partnerships can enhance family-school involvement, and increase school and student outcomes. In low-resourced rural areas, many challenges hinder the development of such collaborative relationships, including expansive geographic distances between families and schools and the multiple roles that teachers and administrators assume. School-University partnerships can potentially help meet these challenges. This chapter describes a School-University partnership program, the Middle School Parent-Teacher Leadership Academy (MPTLA). MPTLA equips rural middle school parents and teachers to impact school and student outcomes. The chapter highlights the need for school-university partnerships in rural areas, discusses the uniqueness of the middle school context, explains the structure of the MPTLA and the partnership team model, provides two examples of the MPTLA partnership model in action, and recommends universities implement similar programs.