Family, School, and Community Partnerships

Call for Submissions - Promising Partnership Practices 2025

The State Advisory Council for Parent Involvement in Education (SACPIE), in collaboration with the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), is collecting promising partnership practices from schools, districts, early childhood programs, and institutes of higher education across the state to publish in the 11th annual Promising Partnership Practices—Colorado book.  SACPIE and CDE invite schools, districts, early childhood centers, institutions of higher education, accountability committees, parent-teacher committees, or any other school- or district-based council to submit an application for consideration in the publication.  The purpose of this book is for schools, districts, and other educational organizations in Colorado to share how they partner with families and the community for student success. Applications are due June 6, 2025.

Practices may be submitted using this Google form or this Word document.

For more information about Promising Partnership practices, visit the website.

Connect and Collaborate

The Office of Family, School, and Community Partnerships offers regular opportunities to district staff to connect and collaborate with us and other districts! Every third Friday of the month, we invite district FSCP contacts to our monthly Coffee Chat. These take place either virtually or in person. For more in-depth collaboration, district teams can join regional FSCP Collaboratives. The Collaborative focuses on strengthening family engagement for positive student outcomes using the FSCP P-12 Framework and Rubrics to guide annual planning and implementation. Check out the links below to learn more about these offerings!

News and Updates

New Resource - State and Federal Accountability Crosswalk: Stakeholder Engagement

This document provides a crosswalk to identify and integrate stakeholder engagement activities that meet both State and Federal accountability requirements. The crosswalk illuminates how stakeholder engagement requirements under ESEA, EASI, and ESSA can be integrated and documented in the Unified Improvement Planning process, to create a comprehensive plan for stakeholder engagement that eliminates redundancy and maximizes time and effort of staff, families, and stakeholders.

View State and Federal Accountability Crosswalk: Stakeholder Engagement [pdf].

FSCP Collaborative Webinar Recording

The Office of FSCP hosted an informational webinar on the FSCP Collaborative on November 13, 2024. This webinar is a great starting point for districts who are considering joining a Collaborative Cohort and would like to learn more. Watch the webinar and reach out to the Office of FSCP with any follow-up questions, or fill out this Google form if you are interested in joining a FSCP Collaborative Cohort.

New Resource - Stakeholder Engagement in Federal Programs

The meaningful engagement of stakeholders is required under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), reauthorized in 2016 as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Meaningful stakeholder engagement requires structures and processes that ensure the ongoing collaboration and input of a variety of stakeholders who represent the demographics of districts, schools and programs.  Stakeholders include: families, students, educators, and community members. This document is designed to help districts and schools meet federal stakeholder engagement requirements, using evidence-based principles of strong family, school, and community partnerships. Organized by ESEA Stakeholder Engagement Program Requirements (SE), this guidance provides compliance requirements, examples of evidence, resources and implementation guidance for districts receiving ESEA funds and participating in regular federal programs monitoring.

View Stakeholder Engagement in Federal Programs [pdf].

Designing Parent/Family Notifications

Using the P-12 FSCP Framework lens, this document provides ideas on ways districts and schools can intentionally design parent notifications that meet state and federal requirements, increase engagement, and ensure  families are able to understand, remember, and use the important information provided.

View Designing Parent/Family Notifications [pdf].

Launching Student Success with Family, School, and Community Partnerships

A new resource is available for schools and districts to share with staff, families, and community partners on the what, why, and how of FSCP. This one-pager can be used to explain what FSCP is when recruiting family engagement team members, share research-based outcomes of high-impact family engagement practices, and briefly outline the steps to an impactful FSCP program at the school and district level.

View Launching Student Success with Family, School, and Community Partnerships.

View the Spanish version of Launching Student Success with Family, School, and Community Partnerships.

2024 Edition of Promising Partnership Practices Now Available

The State Advisory Council for Parent Involvement in Education (SACPIE) and the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) are pleased to share this 10th annual collection of Promising Partnership Practices. The purpose of this publication is for schools, districts, and other educational organizations in Colorado to highlight how they partner with families and the community for student success.

View the 2024 collection of Promising Partnership Practices.

Engaging Stakeholders in Planning

A new resource is available to assist districts and schools as they meaningfully engage stakeholders in a variety of family and community engagement planning activities.

See the Engaging Stakeholders in Planning document here.

High Impact Practices Website

The Family, School, and Community Partnerships Office has designed a new webpage based on the Flamboyan Foundation's Continuum of Impact on Student Success to help schools and districts implement high impact family engagement strategies. Strategies are linked to specific promising partnership practices, as well as additional resources from the field.

Visit the Continuum of Impact High Impact Strategies here.

About The Office of Family-School-Community Partnerships

The Office of Family-School-Community Partnerships sits within the Accountability and Continuous Improvement Office at CDE, and was created in response to Senate Bill 13-193 Increasing Parent Involvement in Public Schools. Responsibilities of the office include:

• Supporting to schools and districts implementing Family and Community Engagement practices
• Incorporating strategies in the Unified Improvement Plan to increase parent engagement in schools, with a specific focus on priority performance and turnaround schools.
• Ensuring that school district board of education adopt district policy for increasing and supporting parent engagement in the public and charter schools of the district
• Communicating and providing support to the identified family partnership point of contact within school districts
• Supporting parent participation on school and district accountability committees (SACs and DACs)
• Staffing the State Advisory Council for Parent Involvement in Education (SACPIE)

Family and School Partnership in Education Month

Governor Polis has declared November to be Family and School Partnership in Education Month. 

Read the Proclamation here | Spanish

Research indicates that family, school and community partnerships lead to improved students’ attendance, higher graduation rates and a deeper sense of belonging (Mapp et al., 2022). Districts interested in promoting Family and School Partnership in Education Month can use this communications toolkit.

In November 2022, the Family, School, and Community Partnerships Office celebrated at the Denver Zoo. Governor Polis shared a few words and read the Proclamation in English and in Spanish. Schools set up displays of their promising practices and Scholastic was in attendance giving away free books to the kids in attendance. Check out the video to hear the governor's remarks and see a few of the promising practices.