Chapter 8: University and Charter System Partnership: Using Equity Based Design Improvement to Build Community Capital

The purpose of this chapter is to illuminate the power of school/university/community partnerships to increase community capital in nontraditional school settings serving families from highly mobile, immigrant populations. We present our findings from a mixed methods study describing how charter school leaders implemented equity-based design improvement plans from a community lens and university collaboration. Our study hypothesized that if community leaders are provided strategies and ongoing coaching to design and implement an equity-based approach to solve local educational problems, their community capital will increase and subsequently so will student outcomes. Our findings indicated that community leaders utilized learned strategies to build relational wealth, empower stakeholders, and inspire change in their communities through shared ownership. Student outcomes were not measured due to the COVID-19 restrictions, but success indicators aligned with community capital descriptors emerged from the data. Further research is needed to expand on the understanding of relational wealth through a cultural lens and whether an increase in a communities’ understanding of dismantling social dominance increases student outcomes through expanded empowerment.