Chapter 6: The Perfect Marriage: How a PDS Partnership Strengthened a Nascent Community School: How a PDS Partnership Strengthened a Nascent Community School

For more than 35 years, professional development school (PDS) efforts have brought schools and universities together to share responsibility for providing high-quality learning opportunities to students, teacher candidates, and educators (Neapolitan & Levine, 2011). Trinity University has engaged in PDS relationships with local schools for more than 25 years. Trinity entered into a formal PDS partnership with Lamar Elementary School and the San Antonio Independent School District in 2013. Building on strong relationships already established between families and community partners, PDS leaders facilitated a series of visioning events which surfaced two key needs: (a) greater support for social-emotional learning; and (b) more relevant, engaging academic learning opportunities. As the PDS partnership strengthened Lamar’s capacity to address students’ socio-emotional and academic learning needs, the school gradually enacted more and more aspects of a community school. We describe and analyze the impact of the interplay between the PDS and community school models on Trinity teacher candidates and teacher educators as well as Lamar students and faculty. Our experiences demonstrate that when a local university partners with a school and the surrounding community, that partnership creates innovative ways to enhance outcomes for all community stakeholders (Ferrara, 2014).