This report discusses the objectives of an exemplary project in sparsely populated southwestern South Dakota which involved nine schools' efforts in the past three years (1974-76) in bringing a variety of vocational education courses to students that none of the districts would have been able to undertake individually, because limited financial…

Beginning in 1978, the Rural Education Program at the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory developed materials of the Keys to School Boardsmanship Project for local school boards, including 13 workshop packages and 2 films. A policy board, with members from the five northwest state associations of local school boards, defined topics to be…

A model is proposed for a rural industrial education outreach center which would function on a regional basis providing supportive services to several Alaskan school districts in the areas of needs assessment; identification, purchase, and distribution of instructional materials; design of competency-based programs; teacher orientation and…

The Regional Skills Program at Big Bend Community College (BBCC) was developed to offer vocational skills training to high school students within BBCC's 5,000 square miles district. The objectives of the program were to identify training needs and priorities, determine the availability of transportation to BBCC, survey college and district…

A computerized referral management system, the Arrowhead Student Information System, has enhanced communication among special education staff members in rural Iowa. The system serves a 45-district intermediate level service unit which identifies and serves children from birth to 21 years who require special education from a student and preschool…

This needs assessment identified six educational needs and issues of schools in the Northwest region, prioritized Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) areas of emphasis, evaluated research/development strategies to address these needs and priorities, and applied assessment results to NWREL program planning activities. Assessment…

Through their visits and conversations with students, teachers, and administrators involved in the Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) over the past decade, the people at Inverness Research Associates came to believe that ARSI served as an important leadership capacity-building effort for improving mathematics and science education in…

The mission of the Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) was to build a long-term capacity that would improve the educational structures of the rural communities it served. The major strategy ARSI used to create improvement communities across Appalachia was to identify, embrace and educate individual teachers, who became ARSI Teacher…

In Kentucky, one of the six participating Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) states, the Teacher Partner concept soon gave rise to the Regional Teacher Partners (RTPs). This complementary project, known as the "Master Teacher Project," was designed after the Teacher Partner model but with one key difference. This paper…

This is the story of Barbara Shoemaker and her work as an Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) Teacher Partner in Oneida, Tennessee. It is the story of what she values and the experiences that shaped her approach to education. In particular it is about what she learned from her experience with the Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative, and…

Many of the people who live in Knott County today are direct descendants of the early settlers of the region. Today the people of Knott County share an identity that is grounded in the place they and their ancestors called home. Perhaps the public endeavor in which the influence of place is most evident is education. In Knott County education has…