It is increasingly clear that even the best schools must engage in systematic and continuous appraisal of their performance, in partnership with the community. A joint planning process could start by engaging citizens in identifying critical issues, relevant assets, and key strategies that can move the community toward a preferred future. Chapter 1, "Building the Leadership Team," describes strategies for increasing community engagement in reform, explains effective methods of recruiting a school-community leadership team, suggests activities for strengthening the school-community connection, and offers 10 strategies for connecting rural schools to promote economic development. Chapter 2, "Visioning the School-Community We Want," explores the important process of writing a vision statement, the usefulness of the statement in motivating public engagement, and the building of a base for the work of the school leadership team. This chapter includes several visioning and scenario-building activities. Chapter 3, "Identifying Issues," highlights the importance of identifying sources of information, discusses the potential for conflict, and suggests activities for talking about data, images of the school, and listing ranked issues. Chapter 4, "Mapping Community and School Assets," considers the use of asset mapping as a planning tool focused on the identification of a local issue involving voluntary associations and formal institutions. This chapter includes activities for mapping the assets of individuals, citizen associations, local institutions, and a community-skills bank. Chapter 5, "Developing Your Action Plan," traces the development of action plans through setting goals, developing strategies, defining activities, and the course of implementation. Chapter 6, "Monitoring Results," reveals the important role of school-community learning teams in monitoring reform outcomes and sustaining public engagement. Suggested activities include a sample work session agenda, questions for self-assessment, and rotating the convenors of meetings. (TEJ)