Chapter 11: Impacting Rural Communities Through School–University–Community Collaboration Partnerships: The Parent Teacher Leadership Academy

Quality school–family partnerships can promote positive student and family outcomes. However, rural schools face many obstacles in establishing and maintaining quality parent–teacher partnerships, including large geographic distances between families and schools. A state university has partnered with rural area schools to create the Parent–Teacher Leadership Academy (PTLA), a leadership training program that equips rural elementary school parents and teachers to impact school and student outcomes in a positive way. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the need for school–university– community partnerships in rural areas, explain the structure of the PTLA and how it implements the parent–teacher partnership model, provide an example of the partnership model in action, and conclude with recommendations for universities that plan to implement similar training programs.