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Wake County schools plan March family-and-community summit with 'scholars pantry' and keynote address
Summary
Wake County Public Schools will hold a two‑day Family and Community Engagement Summit March 20–21 with separate sessions for district staff and families, a community showcase, a scholars pantry stocking more than 1,400 take‑home instructional items and a state‑of‑schools keynote by Superintendent Taylor.
Dr. Kimberly Burton, chair of the districtwide Family and Community Engagement Committee, told the board the 2026 Family and Community Engagement Summit will be March 20–21, with Friday intended for school and district staff and Saturday devoted to families and community members.
"The Friday is really geared towards school, school staff, district staff, and our Saturday, of course, more toward our families and our communities," Burton said, adding that stakeholders may attend either day.
Burton said the summit will include 16 presenters across 10 sessions each day, a keynote and a community showcase with nearly 50 representatives from district departments, nonprofits, businesses and sponsors. The district communications team is running a "final blitz" of outreach; Burton said registration at the time of the report was roughly 50% of capacity, with just shy of 200 family registrations and more than 50 community partners already signed up for Friday and a separate Saturday registration showing 122 adults and 82 families.
A new feature this year is a scholars pantry: an entire room of instructional materials that families may select and take home. "A scholars pantry is going to be an entire room set up with instructional materials that families may select and take home," Burton said, adding the pantry will stock more than 1,400 items and academic staff will help families pick materials by grade.
The Friday program will end early to accommodate Superintendent Dr. Taylor's state of schools address at 3 p.m., staff said.
Burton also summarized pre‑summit professional learning: the district has run a monthly series since October to equip school and district staff with evidence‑based family‑engagement strategies and to build internal capacity ahead of the summit. She said session descriptions, room assignments and the full schedule would be distributed to staff and families by district email and posted on school websites.
On publicity, presenters noted a short promotional video contains copyrighted material that currently cannot be shared publicly; communications staff said the district is evaluating whether a trimmed or cleared version can be posted to raise attendance.
The committee asked for comparative registration data from prior years, additional clarity about how "families" are counted in registration, and a follow‑up report after the summit with attendance and evaluation results. Burton said the registration form distinguishes adult participants and number of children so family totals are aggregated from those fields.
The committee closed the item by encouraging continued outreach and thanked staff and volunteers coordinating the summit.
