School and District Leaders
Make belonging part of how your district runs. Your schools are where families who might never otherwise meet share the same rooms. We help school and district leaders build the arrangements that connect students, families, libraries, youth programs, and community partners, so belonging holds.
Your schools are civic anchors
Nearly every family passes through your schools: hallways, pickup lines, parent nights. That makes them the natural anchor for the libraries, museums, youth programs, resettlement agencies and city offices that also shape young people's lives. We help you build standing arrangements with those partners:
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- A middle school and the public library that share a calendar and a purpose
- A district and a resettlement agency with a working relationship that survives a change in staff
- Family engagement that reaches parents in the languages they speak and gives them a real role in school decisions
Why it matters
One in four students in America has an immigrant parent, and most were born here. Students who feel known and counted on come to school, take part in class and see themselves as members of their community. When belonging holds for immigrant-origin students, it holds for every student in the district.
The reverse is also measurable. In early 2025, daily absences rose 22% during immigration raids in five Central Valley districts (Dee, 2025).
Tell us about your schools and the community around them. We will follow up to talk through ways we can support you.
What school and district leaders have built
We have worked with a wide range of schools and districts across the country, including the Omaha Public Schools, Boston Public Schools, Brockton Public Schools, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, and the Santa Clara County Office of Education. Each one identified a different challenge that we have helped them address. Below are a few examples.
- Santa Clara County Office of Education. A local steering committee developed toolkit and professional support for educators, providing them with the necessary resources and guidance to support the diverse needs of immigrant and refugee students in a manner that is inclusive, informed, and empathetic.
- Boston. Annie B. formed a belonging steering committee at Melvin H. King Academy that connects staff development with Boston partners and shapes school planning.
- Kent, Washington. Neeraj A. used student, family and staff input to redesign routines at Meeker Middle School and is writing belonging into the school's improvement plan.
- District multilingual services. In Texas, Alexa H. developed guidance and a workshop to help district leaders sustain multilingual services when funding was cut.
- New York City. Led by Joel T. from the Division of Multilingual Learners, five RIM-grounded instructional units are rolling out across New York City Public Schools.
Ways to get started
Belonging Ecosystems Fellowship. Send a school or district leader into a year-long cohort of peers from 19+ states. Fellows investigate belonging in their own community, design and test a response with students, families and local partners, and document it so others can adapt it.
Student-led Belonging Audit. Students map where belonging holds and where it breaks down in their school, then present what they find to school leaders.
Professional learning. Workshops and seminars for teachers, counselors and leadership teams on teaching about migration and supporting immigrant-origin students and their peers, drawing on the Re-Imagining Migration Framework, developed by Verónica Boix-Mansilla at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education, with Carola Suárez-Orozco, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, Adam Strom and the RIM team. Between sessions, staff can use the Re-Imagining Migration coaching app.
Belonging Learning Commons. More than 500 free lessons, planning tools, videos and research summaries for every grade level.
Belonging Standard. Join your region's work to set a community-developed standard for belonging that schools and local partners hold together.