The role of "community" in comprehensive school, family, and community partnership programs

In this article, I examine the role of "community" in school-based programs of school, family, and community partnerships. I offer a working definitio n of school-community partnerships, discuss the benefits of school-communit y collaboration, identify gaps in current knowledge in the field, and analy ze survey data collected from over 400 schools across the United States tha t are members of the National Network of Partnership Schools. Analyses were conducted to learn more about the types of community partners with whom sc hools collaborate, the foci of school-community partnerships, the challenge s schools face in developing community partnerships, strategies to address challenges to community partnership development, and factors that influence schools' satisfaction with their community partnership activities. Steps n eeded in research and practice to improve community connections within comp rehensive school, family, and community partnership programs are discussed.