This article discusses the contributions of the international studies in this special issue and presents a few emerging topics on school, family, and community partnerships. The studies in Part I confirm that, across countries, future teachers are inadequately prepared to conduct effective partnership programmes with all students’ families. Part II reports the results of interventions that provide future teachers with opportunities to practice the kinds of communications with parents that they will use as new teachers. In my and colleagues’ studies, several topics of family and community engagement have emerged that will extend and enrich college courses for future teachers and school leaders. These include a redefinition of the ‘professional’ teacher; understanding partnerships as a component of good school organisation; the importance of goal-linked family and community engagement for student success in school; the role of the community in partnership programmes; and the connections of preservice and inservice education for preparing and sustaining productive connections of home, school, and community.

The Ohio Statewide Family Engagement Center (OhSFEC) is implementing a comprehensive, scalable approach to enact state policy for family and school engagement at local levels. Joyce Epstein and Barbara Boone report how OhSFEC’s research-based design, implementation, and evaluation of a leadership ladder has enabled state leaders to support regional, district, and school leaders as they organize and implement family engagement programs linked to schoolwide goals for student learning and development. Initial evaluation of the program shows that the policies and practices are being applied in schools, and families are seeing improvement in their interactions with schools.

Middle grades teachers want early adolescents to take responsibility for their own learning and success in school. One way to encourage this is with interactive homework, which enables students to lead conversations with a parent or family partner about something interesting they are learning in class. An exploratory study tested whether eighth graders would talk with a parent about the transition to high school and about the roles parents may play to support student success in grade 9. Studies indicate that parents make the transition to high school with their students, but many are unsure of how to sustain age-appropriate engagement in their teen’s education. We found that students were able and willing to conduct discussions on four critical issues that determine success or failure in high school: attendance, course passing, GPA, and motivation to succeed. In written comments for each assignment, students were thoughtful and hopeful about entering grade 9 and graduating from high school on time. Parents were positive about their interactions with their early adolescents. Importantly, when parents enjoyed a conversation with their students, they were significantly more likely to say that they gained insights into the importance of on-going engagement in their student’s education in high school.