We are thrilled to bring our second issue of Volume 18 to publication and share eight articles that advance research in, into, and about school–university partnerships (SUPs) (Lynch et al., 2024). These articles highlight both the diverse purposes of partnerships and the many ways they can be structured. School(s), or school district, and university partnerships that are mutually beneficial and support the professional learning of classroom teachers and the preparation of teachers are represented, including one school–university partnership to support the professional learning of classroom teachers in Norway. Additionally, Quirk et al. (2025) report on findings from a community–university partnership that has features of a research–practice partnership. Dresden and Curcio’s (2025) article represents school–university partners coming together to engage in collaborative professional learning across the National Association of School–University Partnerships organization. Rudder et al. (2025) draw their insights into boundary-spanning from a range of contexts described in their edited text, including SUPs, research–practice collaborations and community-based programs.
In line with calls for more research that focuses on antiracism, equity and social justice in partnership research (see Abdal-Haqq, 1998; Breault & Lack, 2009; Dresden et al., 2023; Edwards et al., 2009; Valli et al., 1997; Compton-Lilly et al., 2025 in this issue), several articles represent the possibilities and impacts that partnerships can make on systemic inequalities, as seen through Quirk et al.’s (2025) analysis on school readiness, Kier et al.’s (2025) analysis of mentors’ perspectives and participation in STEM for marginalized students and historically underrepresented youth, Burgard and Boucher’s (2025) description of partnership support of teachers’ development of culturally sustaining pedagogies in middle school classrooms, and Peterson-Ahmed et al.’s (2025) implications for how SUPs can better prepare teachers to teach students with disabilities.
Furthermore, this issue’s articles illustrate the kinds of innovations and programs that are made possible through collaborative partnerships (e.g. a virtual summer reading retreat, professional learning resources for teachers and a summer STEM enrichment program for middle and high school students).
In addition, a number of articles provide notable insights into the complex role of the teacher educator within SUPs by studying how university-based teacher educators (UBTE) design professional learning for teacher educators, what the experiences are of teacher educators participating in professional learning and how to design and facilitate such experiences, as well as both expanding and specifying ‘boundary-spanning’ in various SUPs.
Taken together, these articles advance the call for developing a cohesive school–university partnership research agenda (Dresden et al., 2023) on (1) systems and structures, (2) equity and social justice, (3) the teacher shortage and (4) policy issues, as well as Tunks and Neapolitan’s (2007) call for researching SUPs at different stages. Below, we provide brief insights on each of the articles in this issue.
Research in school–university partnerships
Research in SUPs encompasses inquiry that emerges within an SUP, typically as the background or context where the study took place. Research questions typically emerge from localized problems of practice or innovations that take place within SUPs. Research in SUPs can contribute to scholarship on SUPs as a system (Lynch et al., 2024).
In the first article, Dresden and Curcio (2025) publish findings from two years of a virtual summer reading retreat (VSSR) organized through the National Association of School–University Partnerships. In interviewing the teacher educators who participated in both years of the VSSR, they identified structures that afforded opportunities for inquiry and learning for teacher educators. The structures of optional participation and the absence of prescribed goals created a dynamic and emergent process for teacher educator professional learning. Additionally, the combination of the group composition, shared values of the members and the shared responsibilities (which they further define as a lack of a top-down hierarchical structure) created a safe space for teacher educator professional learning. These structures contributed to several unique learning experiences driven by participants’ interests and marked by intellectualism, reflection, and co-constructed knowledge. Further, participants’ interviews revealed that participation in the VSSR generated “new perspectives and renewed passions related to teaching and scholarship” (p. 9). Overall, Dresden and Curcio’s (2025) article speaks to the importance of designing professional learning for teacher educators that honors their complex role and desire for engaging in collaborative, scholarly activities with one another.
Following Dresden and Curcio’s (2025) article, Rubilar (2025) revealed the efforts and design process for three UBTE tasked with collaboratively developing professional learning resources (i.e. learning modules focused on interdisciplinarity) for teachers in schools. Rubilar (2025) found three issues that impacted the UBTEs’ design of the learning modules: their own understanding of interdisciplinarity and how it is conceptualized and actualized by schools and teachers, the limits of creating lasting change in praxis, and how school and university-based partners were expected to collaborate. Rubilar (2025) highlights that when collaboration is limited, UBTEs appear more as distant ‘policymakers’ who interpret the needs of school-based educators and their students regarding curriculum and professional learning rather than interpret such needs collaboratively. Rubilar’s (2025) article makes an important contribution to the literature on nascent SUPs and the need for mutually beneficial, collaborative spaces for learning and design.
Quirk et al. (2025) examined how community-driven initiatives in SUPs impact school readiness, emphasizing prekindergarten attendance as a key predictor of readiness over factors like age. This study evaluated two collaborative efforts, THRIVE and ELI, between communities, schools and universities, with data collected across two time periods, 2009–2014 and 2021–2024. Findings showed consistent gains in kindergarten readiness, particularly in socioemotional and cognitive domains, though there was a noticeable dip following the COVID-19 pandemic. The study highlights the effectiveness of community partnerships that align early childhood education with kindergarten, especially when supported by SUPs, suggesting that such models can help advance educational equity across communities.
Kier et al. (2025) provide insights into a school–university partnership’s summer STEM enrichment program through the lens of the undergraduate STEM mentors from marginalized and underrepresented backgrounds. Kier et al.’s (2025) summer STEM enrichment program was multilayered, as predominantly African-American undergraduate STEM students both mentored predominantly African-American middle and high school students and were paired with classroom teachers from the SUP to enact inclusive, culturally affirming practices in STEM lessons. Through semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 15 of the mentors on their perspectives of the summer curriculum, two findings emerged: the importance of balancing high expectations with socio-emotional development in STEM curriculum and the role of culturally affirming practices in countering cultural incongruences between teachers and students. Mentors were able to provide critical feedback and suggestions that would be utilized in future iterations of the summer program. In addition to implications for STEM programming, Kier et al.’s (2025) study highlights the necessity of centering equity in program design, hearing the experiences of marginalized groups, and including partners representing diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences in SUP programs and planning.
Research into school–university partnerships
Research into SUPs shifts the focus of the study on the SUP itself, which may include examining processes, experiences, perceptions and/or outcomes of the SUP under study. In doing so, research into SUPs can provide key insights into the structures and mechanisms of the SUP as a system or an entity, which, when framed in professional development school literature, Compton-Lilly et al. (2025) define as “a systemic, multi-faceted innovation that builds on and affects multiple dimensions of teaching and learning” (p. xx). In this way, research questions address how parts of an SUP work together, what gaps or challenges may be present, what change has occurred for actors in the system and/or the SUP system, and so on. While these questions can be descriptive, research into SUPs can and should also include complex, analytical study designs.
Burgard and Boucher (2025) describe, via case study, how two teachers in their SUP felt more enabled to be culturally responsive in their classrooms as a result of the partnership. The SUP had three shared goals: to engage in curricular and pedagogical redesign across grade levels, develop teaming structures by grade level and create a new school discipline plan. Interviews with two teachers suggest that the partnership facilitated student and teacher empowerment and cultural relevancy in the turnaround middle school. Interviewed teachers believed they were able to take on leadership roles and engage in more democratic, culturally relevant classroom practices that empowered students. They also felt protected from some of the state and district political pressures. The study provides implications for SUPs to consider the mission, goals, and guiding frameworks of their work and how SUPs can provide support to teachers and administrators who are under increasing state directives, accountability reforms and policy mandates.
Research about school–university partnerships
Research about SUPs is characterized by its contributions to large-scale, multi-site generalized SUP research that may lead to policy changes at federal, state and/or local levels (Lynch et al., 2024). Two articles in this issue present research about SUPs via a systematic metasynthesis of PDS research as an “entity” and an analysis of the characteristics of the term “boundary-spanner” across 27 recently published chapters on boundary-spanning activity. The final article in this issue provides implications for SUPs that offer initial teacher education in teaching students with disabilities.
Compton-Lilly et al.’s (2025) metasynthesis of PDS research points to the nature of the PDS as a complex entity or innovation – a multi-dimensional system or network of teaching and learning – and revealed many of the challenges, affordances and structures of the PDS as an entity. These scholars found that the studies affirmed the PDS structure as one that nurtures teacher leadership and collaboration and collegial learning. Voice and ownership, multi-level effectiveness, and ongoing opportunities and benefits characterized the PDS entities in the articles reviewed. Less frequent, but noted, was how PDS were not without complexities and challenges, and only one article addressed the respect, trust, and transformation necessary for and made possible through successful PDS partnerships. As a result of their review, Compton-Lilly et al. (2025) note the lack of attention to cultural and linguistic diversity in comprehensive studies of PDS spaces and methodological limits of much PDS research, calling for multi-dimensional research with varied perspectives, data and methods, including longitudinal studies, while attending to community voices and equity practices with PDS.
Building on the argument to continue to use and refine a common lexicon in clinically based teacher preparation (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, 2018; Burns & Baker, 2016; National Association for Professional Development Schools [NAPDS], 2021), Rudder et al. (2025) analyzed the use of the term “boundary-spanner” in their forthcoming edited text Boundary-Spanning in School-University Partnerships (Zenkov et al., 2025). Across the 27 chapters, Rudder et al. (2025) found that the following concepts were used to explain and expand upon the meaning and roles of boundary-spanners: third space, SUP, PDS, research–practice partnerships, community partners, collaboration and equity/social justice. Further, they found that dialogic relationships, mutual goals and formal meetings (i.e. time and space to meet) were noted in the chapters as primary structures to facilitate the roles of boundary-spanners. Rudder et al. (2025) provide their emergent definition of boundary-spanner as “any individual who chooses to step beyond their official roles or titles to become functional partners within a third space; in such partnerships, official roles and hierarchies are blurred and dissolved in favor of genuine, equitable collaboration” (p. 14). With boundary-spanners essential to the development, cultivation and sustainability of mutually beneficial SUPs (NAPDS, 2021), we are reminded that the role of the boundary-spanner is evolving and a concept to which SUP research might continue to return.
The final article in this issue (Peterson-Ahmad et al., 2025) surveyed novice teachers’ self-reported feelings of preparedness in their first three years of teaching, specifically their preparedness to teach and support students with specific learning disabilities in inclusive and/or co-taught classrooms. Data from 64 survey respondents suggest that dual certification alumni (e.g. special education and elementary education) were more confident to teach students with disabilities than students certified in general education only. These findings remind school and/or school district and university-based partners of the need to partner to support teacher candidates prior to graduation and novice teachers to teach students with disabilities, use inclusive teaching practices and honor classroom diversity. The authors provide two possibilities for SUPs to consider, “wraparound mentorship” and “collaborative professional development opportunities,” if they are to ensure students with disabilities have teachers who are prepared to teach them well.
