Challenge

Boston Public Schools (BPS) partners with local nonprofits and organizations to provide access to high-quality opportunities that meet the needs of all students. The school district sought guidance to develop a framework for a strategic partnership management system in order to most effectively monitor and support organizations. 

Overview

With funding from the Barr Foundation, Root Cause conducted a mapping of BPS partner organizations. From January through May of 2012, The Root Cause team researched and evaluated best structures for partnership management systems from school districts nationwide, and analyzed how BPS could leverage existing partnership management activities already underway to form a more effective system.

In May 2012, Boston Public Schools created an Office of Institutional Advancement and Partnerships (OIA&P) and hired a Director of OIA&P to clarify accountability and support for partnerships, a concern identified by district, school and nonprofit leaders through our research. Per our findings from other districts and our recommendations, the Office put in place PartnerBPS, an online platform for partner registration and approval and a searchable database the students, families and school personnel can use to identify approved programs and/or the programs available at each school. They also subsequently work with Root Cause to develop quality standards.

Root Cause has continued to work with Boston Public Schools across a few different projects, such as the 2015 Assessment of their programs and partnerships.