How School Principals Can Strengthen Community Partnerships Over the Summer

No school exists in a vacuum. Every student, teacher, staff member, and parent who walks through your doors carries with them the relationships, support systems, and shared values of the community in which your school exists. Principals play a key role in weaving these connections into a stronger, more unified school community.

Neighborhood and cultural organizations, local businesses, government agencies, faith communities, healthy providers—these community organizations not only are shaped by the people in that community, but they also have the ability to shape the landscape of your school. 

Research shows strong community partnerships can expand opportunities for students, respond to challenges, and build a shared sense of purpose. They offer resources, mentorship, and real-world learning experiences. They create a deeper level of trust between schools and the communities they serve. And they remind students that their education doesn’t just belong to the classroom—it belongs to something bigger.

But these relationships don’t happen overnight. For school principals, summer is a prime opportunity to invest in this work—setting the stage for a successful school year rooted in connection.

Whether you're a new principal or a veteran school leader looking to refresh your strategy, here are six actionable ways to refresh your community engagement strategy in the school year ahead.

1.) Take inventory of who’s in your corner already

Summer is the perfect time for principals to reflect on who’s already supporting their school.  Before you explore new community partnerships, it’s worth asking: who’s already in your corner, and how can those relationships be strengthened? Start by mapping out the people and organizations that have engaged with your school over the past year.

Try sorting your partners into three informal categories:

• Active partners are the organizations and businesses you regularly engage with. Maybe they support experiential learning, co-host events, or show up for career day.
• Dormant connections are partners who’ve faded from view—perhaps due to leadership changes, shifting priorities, or the sheer busyness of their own work. 
• Hidden allies are those who support your school quietly and consistently. Think: a café that donates coffee for staff events or a librarian who champions your students.

As you build this inventory, look for gaps and patterns. For instance, are most of your community partnerships clustered around a certain grade level or theme (like health or literacy)? Are there community organizations doing youth-focused work that your school isn’t yet connected to? Starting with who’s already engaged honors those who already care about your school—and opens the door for deeper collaboration in the future. 

2.) Make space for strategic outreach

Once you’ve taken inventory, carve out intentional time for relationship building. It can be as simple as prioritizing a short list of 5-10 people and then committing an hour a week to reaching out. Use the time to send a few emails reintroducing yourself to those dormant connections, having coffee with a potential partner, or inviting a collaborator to take a walk-through of your school. 

If you have a leadership team, consider assigning outreach roles based on existing relationships or shared interests. Your school counselor might connect with a mental health nonprofit. Your office manager may already have a strong rapport with a local business owner. A school nurse might be the perfect person to connect with public health agencies. Tapping into these existing relationships can make outreach more authentic—and much more effective, too. 

Remember: Even if a partnership or way forward doesn’t emerge from your initial communication, this outreach plants the seed and shows your school is engaged and ready to build on the relationship.

3.) Lead with listening

Effective school-community partnerships begin with listening. Resist the urge to lead with an agenda. Instead, ask community partners: What are you focused on right now? What challenges are you navigating? How do you see your work intersecting with young people or families?

This approach helps you understand the partner’s goals and values before proposing a collaboration. And it demonstrates that your school isn’t only looking for a one-way partnership—you’re looking to build something that benefits everyone involved.

As you listen, you might find that you uncover new angles for community engagement that you hadn’t considered: A local arts nonprofit seeking space for after-school programming, or a neighborhood association looking to involve students and families in a community improvement or mural project. 

When you approach these conversations with genuine curiosity, you make space for shared problem-solving. And when the time comes to talk about your school’s needs, you’ll be speaking to someone who already feels like a collaborator—not someone who needs to be sold on a particular idea. 

4.) Ask your school community for partnership input

Principals don’t have to build partnerships alone. Your staff and students are full of ideas, experiences, and personal connections to organizations and entities outside your community that can strengthen your outreach and ensure there’s alignment in common goals.

Even though students and teachers may be out of the building, there are still meaningful opportunities to bring their perspectives into your summer planning. Think about informal, easy ways to gather input at this time of year, like sending out a quick midsummer survey to staff asking what community connections they wish existed, or inviting a few student leaders or recent graduates to a Zoom call where they can reflect on their experiences with local organizations. 

Involving others, even lightly, builds early buy-in. When fall arrives and it’s time to launch or expand a partnership, your team won’t just see it as a top-down initiative—they’ll recognize their voice in it and they’ll be more likely to help sustain the partnership once school is back in session. 

5.) Tell your school’s story clearly and consistently

Your community can’t support what it doesn’t understand. Use the summer months to refine how you’re telling your school’s story.

First, take a look at your school’s website, newsletters, and social media accounts. Do they reflect your values? Are you highlighting student achievements and community involvement? Do they invite others to get involved?

Second, assess what additional communications you might need to tell that story. Maybe it’s a one-pager or “About Our School” snapshot that outlines your mission, vision, key programs, and opportunities for partnership. Think of materials that you can bring to meetings or attach to emails that 

This kind of storytelling builds resonance—and resonance builds connection. When the people and organizations in your community understand your school’s purpose and how it aligns with their own, they’re more likely to contribute resources, time, and expertise. The clearer your story, the more open the invitation.

6.) Strong schools thrive in community 

Strong principals know that schools don’t thrive in isolation. They thrive when they invest in relationships beyond their walls—with the people, organizations, and systems that shape students’ lives just as much as curriculum and instruction do. 

So this summer, we invite you to take a step back, reflect on the connections that matter most for your school, and make space for deeper community building. Because you’re not just preparing these partnerships for a new school year—you’re building a school that’s deeply rooted in the community it serves. 

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