Between April 21 and 26, 2022, educators, researchers and community members met for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting. This year’s theme was, ‘Cultivating Equitable Education Systems for the 21st Century’. Professor Sejal Patel and her former student Natalie Cummins (M.E.S., M.A.) shared about school administrators’ leadership strategies and practices to foster family-school-community partnerships in a school board-wide equity initiative. Findings suggest that anti-oppression and family-school-community partnership training should be mandatory for leaders in equity-deserving communities. In order to create more equitable outcomes, place must be considered, alongside targeted and tailored leadership strategies. Professor Sejal Patel and Krischanda Bemister (Research Project Manager, GEEC) shared about school-based stakeholders’ perspectives on their neighbourhood, housing redevelopment, social dynamics and sense of belonging. Findings support the importance of including child, teacher and parent voices when planning, implementing and evaluating policy initiatives that directly affect their lives.