School Leadership Development Program (CDFA#84.363A)

Though often relegated to the basement of 20thcentury United States (US) educational rankings, Kentucky's course for schooling shifted dramatically in the 1990s. Kentucky's over a decade-long investment in education has markedly improved its overall standing among the states; however, sections of the commonwealth experience persistent and notorious challenges to student educational performance. Located in the rural foothills of Appalachia, Pike County is the easternmost and largest geographic school district in Kentucky. The Annie E. Casey Foundation's Kentucky Kids Count (1999) reports that, like much of Appalachia, Pike County's enduring poverty, poor health, and family dislocation jeopardizes school-aged children's potential for learning and reduces their life chances. Although since 1990 Pike County has worked closely with Kentucky Family Resource and Youth Service Centers (FRYSCs) to ameliorate impact from such circumstances and with teachers to improve instruction, student performance on the CTBS/5, a nationally norm-referenced test, remains significantly lower than average student performance in the state. Without strategic educational leadership and other interventions, Pike County's children will continue to be left behind as both Kentucky and the nation progress in the quest for high standards in US public education and student achievement. The overarching goal for the proposed School Leadership Development Program include development and refinement of a model for improved leadership assuring learning for at-risk students in rural school districts. Partners in the development of this model include the University of Kentucky, which is the commonwealth's largest land-grant research university, School Leadership DevelopmeC}ogram (CFDA 84.363A): Kentucky's COllabOion Model 11 Morehead State University, which is one of Kentucky's five regional public comprehensive universities, and Pike County School District as a prototype rural Appalachian school district. This partnership offers seven objectives to meet the goal of improved school leadership assuring learning for at-risk students in rural school districts. First, the project focuses on developing leadership for underserved populations of students in high-need rural school districts. Second, the project establishes professional networks and career "pipelines" for the identification, preparation and on-going development of school leaders for high-need rural schools. Third, the project assures on-going and continuous learning for aspiring and practicing school leaders through collaborative participation in cohorts of certification and doctoral graduate-level students of educational leadership. Fourth, the proposed project offers situated learning (internship practicums) and job-embedded development through mentoring of prospective school leaders by successful, practicing principals. Fifth, the project assesses and exposes practicing principals' needs and challenges in assuring improved learning for students in high-need rural school districts. Sixth, the project utilizes appropriate resources among the collaborative partners (a land grant research university, a regional comprehensive university, and the targeted rural Appalachian school district). Finally, the project models a program of preparation, professional development and re-culturation of school leadership to assure learning for at-risk students in rural school districts that may be portable across the commonwealth of Kentucky as well as to the other thirteen states in Appalachia.