Twelve teachers and two principals from the Addison Northeast Supervisory Union School District (Vermont) met to consider what a small rural school district can do to assess its own programs and to discuss how to go about program assessment with the goal of helping schools become effective learning organizations. The district serves about 1,800 students in 5 elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school. Participants began by defining a common vocabulary of program assessment and preparing a mission statement. In defining their goals, the educators decided on assessment of the major disciplines, beginning with science. Evaluation questions were formulated in the assessment categories of inputs, implementation, and outcomes; and participants began to look for data about each question. Test results from district and state assessments, including the Vermont writing and mathematics portfolios, were acknowledged as an important source of data. The participants developed a Science Assessment Plan with data collection for a 4-year cycle, followed by an assessment committee's evaluation of the data. The experiences of this district demonstrated that a small district can establish its own evaluation plan, but that it probably cannot develop all the tools needed for evaluation on its own. An appendix presents the program assessment mission statement. (SLD)