Sounds like you're using handlebar here. In your app.engine call, you have the option to define a partialsDir like this
app.engine('hbs', hbs({
partialsDir : [
path.join(__dirname, 'views/partials'),
]
})
);
Move your partial files to that folder. Don't forget that the extension for your partial has to match the extension specified in this set up. The commonest one to use is .hbs.