Recognizing the challenges rural districts face in providing broad curricular offerings and supplemental educational services to students, in 2007, the 80th Texas Legislature authorized the creation of a pilot program designed to provide technology-based supplemental educational services to rural school districts that show an overall academic need as demonstrated by their 2007 state accountability ratings. The Rural Technology (R-Tech) Pilot Program provides nearly $8 million in funding for technology-based supplemental education programs, including online courses, to students in Grades 6 through 12 in high-need, rural districts. In establishing R-Tech, Legislators called for the pilot program to be evaluated to assess its effectiveness, requiring an interim report in December 2008 and a final evaluation report in December 2010. The interim report describes the characteristics of R-Tech districts and campuses, the students they enroll, and the teachers they employ. It presents baseline data on students' academic outcomes and describes how districts plan to implement the R-Tech program in their schools. Report sections provide baseline information and are descriptive in nature. They provide important information about the context for and implementation of the R-Tech pilot program, but they do not comprise an assessment of the pilot's effectiveness. A comprehensive evaluation report, due in December 2010, will evaluate the pilot program's effectiveness, including its effect on students' academic achievement and college readiness outcomes, as well as its cost effectiveness. (Contains 6 figures, 19 tables, and 14 footnotes.) [For "The Texas Rural Technology (R-TECH) Pilot Program: Interim Evaluation Report. Executive Summary," see ED536700.]