The Stanford/SFUSD Partnership: one pinch of happenstance, four parts strategy

Re- from posted from the blog, Your SF Public Schools

Originally posted on September 9th, 2011

What’s the recipe for a strong partnership between a school district and a university?

- Combine one superintendent, one dean, and one private foundation that desire to work together

-Stir in two cups shared research interests

-Throw in a handful of resources (that already existed, but were under-leveraged)

-Add daily, weekly, and monthly channels of communication

-Then blend together with one dedicated partnership director funded by the foundation

-Place in close geographic proximity to one another and sprinkle on a common vision

-Top with the common goal of advancing student achievement

San Francisco Unified School District and Stanford University utilized this “recipe” over the last two years to benefit from all their partnership has to offer. Cooked up by the President of the Silver Giving Foundation, Phil Halperin, the out-going Dean of Stanford University’s School of Education, Deborah Stipek, and SFUSD’s Superintendent Carlos Garcia, the three leaders turned a happenstance relationship into a more formalized partnership during the 2009-2010 by hiring me, Laura Wentworth, as a Partnership Director,. Since then, the partnership has:

1. Insured all Stanford projects in the district are aligned with SFUSD priorities;

2. Set up agreements and processes that streamline communication;

3. Helped SFUSD and Stanford personnel have a two-way dialog about research and research findings on a more consistent and reliable basis.

Every year Stanford and SFUSD personnel get together for an annual meeting to review and revise the vision statement and examine the most recent research findings from Stanford projects. Rather than this old recipe gathering dust, both Stanford and SFUSD personnel take time to work in the kitchen side-by-side while considering district decisions based on findings from Stanford research studies. This mutually beneficial relationship continues to improve, so be on the lookout for new ingredients!

To learn more about the Stanford/SFUSD partnership, go to: http://silvergiving.org/stanfordsfusd-partnership

Stanford/SFUSD Partnership Vision Statement, Updated for 2011-2012: The partnership between Stanford University and San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) supports and promotes innovative, practical research, and engages practitioners, policy makers, and academics in a dialog about research findings and implications for decision-making. The partnership helps Stanford research inform San Francisco's policies and practices and Stanford learn from San Francisco's expertise, with the goal of advancing student achievement in San Francisco and beyond.