Over the past decade, Illinois has emerged as a national exemplar of how state policy can drive systemic change in civics education. The Illinois Civic Mission Coalition, a pan-ideological alliance of educators, policymakers, and civic organizations, has shaped the state's civics education vision. The coalition built a scalable infrastructure of support through the Illinois Civics Hub, which serves as the operational backbone for implementation. One Illinois Civics Hub initiative that is complementary to the civics mandate is Illinois Democracy Schools (IDS), a network of schools that uses a research- and community-informed framework to support a school-specific, whole-school civics learning agenda and provides resources and professional development that are responsive to expressed needs. Stories from five Democracy Schools illustrate the varied ways these concepts are practiced and show how the IDS model gives each state, district, and school a way to design and offer cross-disciplinary civics learning opportunities to students in partnership with communities.