This proceedings contains 60 conference papers that address critical issues related to rural education, special education, teacher training, school reform, and services for students who are at risk. The conference theme of rural partnerships recognizes the diversity of the ACRES membership and the need for developing and maintaining successful working relationships among rural professionals, community agencies, and families. Topics include management and leadership models that encompass female executives, academic alliances, rural teacher induction, rural inservice training using distance technologies or a career ladder approach, rural transdisciplinary team training, child care for young disabled children, preparing general educators for inclusion, training special education teachers to use telecommunications, read aloud programs and parent participation, intergenerational entrepreneurship, deaf education using interactive television, teacher study groups, gifted education in rural areas, rural collaboration on a transition task force, fetal alcohol syndrome in rural classrooms, alternative certification in special education, portfolio assessment in teacher education, student behavior in rural mainstreamed settings, leisure activities for mentally retarded adults, parental aspirations for learning disabled students, rural teachers' beliefs about inclusion, itinerant-model service delivery in rural settings, transitional programs, meeting the needs of medically fragile students, dropout prevention, teacher collaboration, rural school-community partnerships for transition, creativity training, negotiated program evaluation, administrator training, migrant education, parent participation along the Mexican border, rural parent and staff development, grief counseling, collaborative consultation, college as a transition option, total quality learning in rural settings, adaptive and assistive technology, and potential outcomes for special education. A topical index broadly categorizes papers into the following areas: administration, at-risk students, collaborative education models, early childhood, gifted, low incidence populations, parents and families, preservice and inservice teacher training, technology, and transition. (SV)