How can K-16 partnerships enlist Latino parents as informed allies in support of their children’s college planning? This article draws on data from 3 years of participant observation to show how a bilingual outreach program for parents at a diverse high school narrowed the information gap about college, enhanced family social networks, and challenged inequities. Latino families gained knowledge and confidence for interacting with institutions, communicating with their children, and easing pathways to college.

This article problematizes conventional school-family partnerships, as geared toward narrow school agendas or mandates for collaboration, and documents efforts to lead more authentic partnerships as part of socially just urban schools. Just as meaningful parent involvement needs to go "beyond the bake sale," so, too, must leadership for authentic partnerships go beyond symbolic activities such as coffee with the principal. Based on qualitative data from two studies of Los Angeles administrators in predominantly Latino immigrant schools, this article proposes a continuum for understanding varying approaches to leadership for partnerships and composes portraits of three school leaders dedicated to dialogue, parent advocacy, and community revitalization.

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How do marginalized parents construct their role in promoting their children's access to educational opportunity? What lessons might their experience have for our understanding of parent involvement beyond the parameters of traditional models? This qualitative case study examined the beliefs, goals, and practices of 16 working-class African American and Latino parents whose children were in a college access program at a diverse metropolitan high school. It offers an alternative typology of parent roles, which reflects parents' contrasting social and cultural locations, biographies, and perceptions of-as well as relations with-their children and the school. With its highlighting of marginalized parents' voices at a critical juncture in student careers, this article contributes to a more inclusive discourse on families, schooling, and equity.

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