Partnering to Advance Educational Initiatives

EDU 402 Community Partnership Project

Module: 7
Assignment: Community Partnership Research Project, Track A

Script and Questions:

Hello and thank you for taking the time to allow me to interview you today. Before we
get started, please share your
● Name Amelia Courts
● Organization Education Alliance
● Title President and CEO

Theme 1: Working Together for a Common Goal

● Please share an overview of your partnerships and why they were created.

“Sure! The Education Alliance started an initiative [founded in 1983 almost 40

years old] not long after we were founded and it’s one of our most historic
landmark initiatives and it’s called Partnerships in Education. It was started by
business leaders who wanted to both play a role and contribute and also help
have a voice in public education. The goal of partnerships in education was to
match every school in the state with at least one business partner in their local
community. And the outcome of those partnerships were very different,” (Courts,
2022).

● Can you please share how your partnership has advanced the mission of your
organization?

“Education Alliance partners with others to advance their missions but also
leverage partnerships to advance the mission of schools. They are an organizer
of partnerships and they also partner. “We partner to help West Virginia students
understand about future career opportunities and become better equipped and
prepared to participate in the future workforce. What we do is actually identify
different businesses and we ask them to volunteer one hour of their time and
then we work with them on a presentation. So the business prepares a little
presentation that we help them with and then we zoom them in every week and
that business gives the presentation and some training on a specific skill,”
(Courts, 2022).

Theme 2: Forming Partnerships

● What type of partnerships have you formed?

“Well I think I kinda just gave examples of that. We partner with several different
businesses,” (Courts, 2022).
● When your organization forms a partnership does it create a formal partnership
agreement?

“Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t,” (Courts, 2022).

● How does your organization organize/finalize the partnership agreement,
whether it is a formal agreement or not?

“Well you know if it’s a formal agreement then we have something like an MOU or
an agreement that spells out all the details, hash it out and then sign it. That’s
one way of formalizing it. Another way is really through communication. Here’s
what we’re thinking, what are you thinking? And then one thing we like to do is
get something in writing, even if it’s not a formal document. We like to have
something in writing. We like to make sure we’re all on the same page for
clarification,” (Courts, 2022).

Theme 3: Management and Communication

● How is your partnership managed? (How are your partnerships managed?)

“Well we use a variety of tools to manage our partnerships. One of them is an

online learning management system. We use an online collaboration space,”
(Courts, 2022). They use the online platforms greatly now and therefore most
things get uploaded virtually now. A positive to this new approach is that
educators can access the presentations at their convenience. “Another is regular
surveys where we collect data from our partners. We would do a focus group and
say what needs to be improved and how can we do this better,” (Courts, 2022).

● Please describe a few of the challenges that your organization has faced during
its partnerships, and how did it overcome the challenges?

“Well one of the big examples is of course Covid, I can think of that recently. The
way we overcame it is we began to do the virtual module. Before covid we did all
these face-to-face presentations,” (Courts, 2022).
 ● Do you have a Communication Plan?

“We do,” (Courts, 2022).

● How do you communicate with partners? Does your organization use email,
newsletters, websites, conference calls, and/or any other tools?

“Yes, yes, yes and yes. It depends on the audience. For example a lot of business
like things going out in email and they also like social media because they can
retweet the things we do and share them on Facebook, that kind of thing.
Students aren’t really into emails, they like text messages and that kind of thing.
Teachers of course are much more into email so I would say it depends on the
audience,” (Courts, 2022).

Theme 4: Work Plans and Activities

● How do you evenly distribute the work within the partnership?

“That’s a good question. I think that since we’re a non-profit we really believe that
the value add that we bring is by minimizing the work of our partners. So we can
add value by helping the business create a presentation or helping the teacher
come up with a lesson plan or tools to use it. We try to make sure that it is evenly
distributed. Being good listeners and communicators is important,” (Courts,
2022).

● Do you establish work plans to break down specific tasks?

“All of our employees have work plans and whenever we do a partnership

agreement like an MOU for an example we have something that outlines that,”
(Courts, 2022).

● What is your strategy to hold people accountable?

“That’s a really good question too. Internally for our own team we use
performance reviews and really make sure we’re holding ourselves and we also
collect data that through surveys and that kind of thing that really shines a light
on you know if there is a place people aren’t really doing what they said they were
going to do and that really comes to light there. I think reporting is a good way to
hold people accountable and being transparent with both expectations. Regular
check-ins,” (Courts, 2022).

Theme 5: Partnership Evaluation

 ● Have you created measurable outcomes?

“Yes,” (Courts, 2022).

● How do you evaluate your partnerships?

“Well again that goes back to our qualitative and quantitative evaluations I think if
you look at our annual report we publish one. It shows qualitative stories and
things like that of success and has quantitative data,” (Courts, 2022).

Theme 6: Equity and Inclusion

● Have you introduced equity and inclusion into your partnership? How are they
effectively accomplished?

“That’s another great question. One of the things we’re really focused on right
now is equity and inclusion. In addition to the weekly job shadowing modules
there’s also internships that we offer. Employers are keen on making sure that
they have a diverse workforce. A lot of times they will tell us that they want
diversity, a workforce that is primarily male dominated but wanting their
workforce to be 50% females. Our board of directors, again we try to identify
board members who are also from diverse backgrounds so that the board itself
has that diverse perspective,” (Courts, 2022).

Theme 7: Partnership Transitions and Endings

● Is this an ongoing partnership or does it have an ending date?

“It’s an ongoing partnership,” (Courts, 2022).

● How have your partnerships transitioned?

“I think that they are becoming more and more important. A lot of education has
typically happened in silos. Kids are learning things just to pass a test or to get a
certain score but really the more enriched learning experiences are connected to
the real world and you need partners for that. The value and quality of the
partnerships is getting better,” (Courts, 2022).

● What happens when a partnership ends?

“Well I think that there are probably a couple of different options for when
partnership ends. Hopefully the partnership ends successfully and if it ends
successfully then people are more likely to partner again either with themselves
or other partners. They have the desired outcome that they partnered on. If a
partnership doesn’t end well it can have the opposite effect. Part of the reason
that partnerships end sometimes is because they are too dependent on one or
two people. If you have partnerships based on more than just a few people really
ingrained in the culture of the organization then it is more likely to be sustained,”
(Courts, 2022).