Leveraging a University to Create Local Equity-Oriented K-12 Learning Opportunities: A Conversation Starter

This article shares our university center's efforts to act as a boundary spanner supporting colleagues across our university to contribute collectively to more equitable educational opportunities for local K-12 students and their teachers. We focus here on the ongoing critical reflection and collaboration needed to tap such university resources to support K-12 students typically underresourced and underserved in K-12 systems. We consider examples and challenges of our work through five equity-oriented principles. We seek to highlight the role of research-practice teams on campuses that help (or could help) university partners contribute to local K-12 schools, programs, and systems with equity in mind. Finally, we hope to convince other higher education institutions to leverage their resources more to grow K-12 education opportunities locally where needs are greatest.