Kyndal White manages community partnerships across five schools in Granite School District's Kearns network. She has spent seven years turning one-off connections into lasting support for students and families.

A profile published Sept. 15 by Promise Partnership Utah spotlights White's work during Community School Coordinator Appreciation Week, which runs through Sept. 19. White, a community school coordinator, described the role in structural terms.

"Our job is like being a major interchange on the interstate," she said in the profile, explaining that the position keeps partners from getting stuck in silos.

When White noticed gaps between schools and after-school programs, she created a standing advisory council where partners could work through problems together. That council turned a one-time fix into a permanent structure.

Her work also extends to immigrant families. White said parents who arrive unfamiliar with American schools can become some of the program's strongest leaders and advocates once they are brought into the work.

A photo in the profile shows donated shoes and clothing at Kearns Junior High, sorted by size and labeled in English and Spanish.

Christa Rowland, a regional director at the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL), the national backbone for the Coalition for Community Schools, said coordinators like White fill a specific gap. Schools may begin seeing results within three years, Rowland said, though the work can take a decade to fully mature. She described the role as systemic, focused on building partnerships that can outlast any single coordinator.

The model is already familiar in Granite School District. Christi Christensen, now director of community schools for the district, built the approach at Wilson Elementary in South Salt Lake. In an Aug. 25 Promise Partnership article about Utah's fourth consecutive No. 1 ranking from U.S. News & World Report, Christensen said principals should not have to hold those networks together alone and called for a system in place to do it.

The profile also highlighted the model's reach beyond Granite. At Westmore Elementary in Orem, principal Victor Larsen once spent an entire December day packing food boxes alone. After coordinator Alyson Madsen took over logistics, the effort now feeds more than 200 families in under 90 minutes with volunteer help.