Background: Calls to improve learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and particularly engineering, present significant challenges for school systems. Partnerships among engineering industry, universities, and school systems to support learning appear promising, but current work is limited in its conclusions because it lacks a strong connection to theoretical work in interorganizational collaboration.Purpose/Hypothesis: This study aims to reflect more critically on the process of how organizations build relationships to address the following research question: In a public–private partnership to integrate engineering into middle school science curriculum, how do stakeholder characterizations of the collaborative process align with existing frameworks of interorganizational collaboration?Design/Method: This qualitative, embedded multiple case study considered in‐depth pre‐ and post‐year interviews with teachers, administrators, industry, and university personnel during the first year of the Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Schools (PEERS) program. Transcripts were analyzed using a framework of interorganizational collaboration operationalized for our context.Results: Results provide insights into stakeholder perceptions of collaborative processes in the first year of the PEERS program across dimensions of collaboration. These dimensions mapped to three central discussion points with relevance for school–university–industry partnerships: school collaboration as an emergent and negotiated process, tension in collaborating across organizations, and fair share in collaborating toward a social goal.Conclusions: Taking a macro‐level look at the collaborative processes involved enabled us to develop implications for collaborative stakeholders to be intentional about designing for future success. By systematically applying a framework of collaboration and capitalizing on the rich situational findings possible through a qualitative approach, we shift our understanding of collaborative processes in school–university–industry partnerships for engineering education and contribute to the development of collaboration theory.

Broadening participation in engineering is an important national priority and has led to increasing demands for engineering content to be integrated into traditional K-12 curriculum. However, expecting teachers to incorporate engineering into their classrooms without additional training or resources is unreasonable. Partnering teachers with industry partners is one promising way to prioritize integrated science and engineering content while also introducing youth to possible career paths. In this programmatic article, we introduce the Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Schools (PEERS) project that focuses on the collaborative design, implementation, and study of recurrent hands-on engineering activities with middle school youth in three rural communities in or near Appalachia. We discuss the curricular priorities of the program as well as preliminary findings on both student-focused and capacity-building metrics across the partnerships. Key discussion points include (1) a need to distill goals for engineering outreach by wrestling with what success might really look like for middle-school youth engagement with engineering and (2) cultivating community capacity to better support education systems and the simultaneous potential for and challenges of collaborating to build such infrastructure.