The Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) recognizes the importance of family and community engagement as an essential element in efforts to improve outcomes for children cradle to career. Successfully engaging families, strengthening family-school partnerships and aligning efforts requires building the capacity of everyone involved. The ramifications of multiple crises – public health, racial justice, and economic – have magnified and exacerbated challenges in our most vulnerable communities. As the pandemic unfolded through various stages, schools and districts with good engagement practices and deep community partnerships were in a better position to respond to the crisis, innovate and build on promising approaches.

The 2021 National Family and Community Engagement Conference provides an opportunity to highlight innovation and high-impact strategies; and this year, we are excited to spotlight The School District of Philadelphia! Join us as state leaders, school and district leaders, administrators, educators, community-based organizations, researchers and families come together to focus on solutions that enhance and expand engagement through family-school-community partnerships. With pre-conference sessions, plenaries, workshops, deep dive sessions and more, participants will be immersed in many examples of high-impact engagement work taking place across the country.