West Virginia's Regional Education Service Agency 6 (RESA 6) serves five districts in the northern panhandle of the state--Brooke, Hancock, Marshall, Ohio, and Wetzel--which together are home to 51 schools. RESA 6 joined the pilot implementation of the Learning School approach in the summer of 2015, as part of the second cohort. RESA 6's group…

Reported is one of a series of research and development efforts at the University of Virginia sponsored by the U.S. Office of Environmental Education. These projects are intended to produce approaches, methods, and basic resources needed to improve local capabilities in environmental education program design and implementation. Presented in this…

This first in a series of three papers on models for communicating and disseminating career education programs covers national and regional models. Focus is on four levels of dissemination: spread, exchange, choice, and implementation. First, common mechanisms for spread are described, such as newsletters, brochures and materials packets,…

This guide is the fourth in a series of guidelines designed to be a framework for positive action at the school site and in the classroom through the High Schools That Work (HSTW) program, an effort to raise the achievement of career-bound students. It details the process of accomplishing the HSTW's goals through an ongoing staff development…

Patterned after a previously successful Laborers-Associated General Contractors model named the Construction Skills Training Program, a demonstration project was implemented at five regional training centers. At least eight courses were created, combined, or revised. Four full-length audiovisual support pieces were completed. Three courses were…

The delivery model of the Birth-through-Three program incorporates interlocking community-based centers with a regional agency (Little Tennessee Valley Educational Cooperative) under the administrative guidance of an advisory council. The program goal is to provide highly qualified professional services to the targeted children/families within…

This guide describes seven model programs that were developed by the Finger Lakes Regional Center for Economic Development (New York) to meet the training needs of female and minority entrepreneurs to help their businesses survive and grow and to assist disabled and dislocated workers and youth in beginning small businesses. The first three models…

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…