Land Grant Institutions (LGIs) and Cooperative Extension were founded to bring educational access to the states they serve. In contrast to this mission and the ubiquitous nature of Extension services in US counties, Extension offices can only be found in a small number of indigenous communities. Despite these inequities, there are Extension…

This playbook addresses the "how" in the continuous improvement process, focusing on schools and communities. It is a step-by-step guide for superintendents, principals, staff, and communities on how to engage in the school continuous improvement cycle while recognizing the unique assets and challenges of communities and their schools.…

Get Smart Fast about the benefits of supporting student and staff well-being! Prioritizing well-being in schools creates environments where everyone feels valued and supported, which leads to better educational outcomes and a healthier, more supportive community. This infographic provides strategies, examples, and resources to effectively support…

This article describes how superintendents approach the administrative processes of recruiting, hiring, and training new teachers to work in Alaska's rural schools. Drawing from interviews of superintendents and administrators in 32 rural Alaska school districts, the data show not only the amount of time and responsibility that rural…

In a time of declining federal funding, partnerships that can leverage resources to accomplish complementary goals are vital to creating and maintaining successful communities. HUD's Office of University Partnerships (OUP) has fostered these partnerships by investing funds in institutions of higher education (IHEs), which use these grants to…

Indigenous methodologies for guiding, advising, and educating children have been in place since time immemorial. Those well-honed approaches to education were built to support whole and healthy individual development while also establishing a lifelong awareness and reverence for community, connection, kinship, and reciprocity. In Western cultures,…

More than just storerooms of information, tribal college libraries are gathering spaces that bring people together. The Tuzzy Consortium Library at IIisagvik College builds community by providing services and programs that reflect the values of Alaska's North Slope Iñupiaq people. The college library collaborates with different organizations to…

REL Pacific at McREL, one of 10 Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs) funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES), serves educators in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap), Guam, Hawai'i, the Republic of the…

To create a strong local economy, the community needs a workforce. In Native communities, the workforce should be grounded in the local culture and values. On the North Slope of Alaska, this has long been a goal of leaders. To achieve this goal, North Slope leaders came together February 2010 in Barrow, Alaska, for the "Tumitchiat"…

During 2010-2012, three professional development workshops brought together K-12 educators and scientists conducting research in the geographic and ecological context of Alaska's three large marine ecosystems (Bering Sea/Aleutians, Gulf of Alaska, and Arctic Ocean). Educators successfully applied new scientific knowledge gained from their…

In 1994 the Ford Foundation launched the Rural Community College Initiative (RCCI) as a "national demonstration project to help community colleges in distressed regions move their people and communities toward prosperity. It challenged community colleges to become catalysts for economic development and supported aggressive efforts to increase…

Reports on the community spirit manifested by the students, faculty, and administrators of Kuskokwim Community College (Alaska) to keep the college operating when the town generator burned down in mid-winter. (DC)

A national study of superintendents reveals that most superintendents (89.6 percent) consider their relationship with the community to be very important, and most (63.5 percent) spend a great deal of time on that relationship. There is a positive correlation between the importance superintendents assign to their relationship to the community and…

As part of a larger study of systemic educational reform in rural Alaska, this case study examines the implementation of the Alaska Onward to Excellence (AOTE) improvement process in the village of Tatitlek in south-central Alaska. The village has about 100 residents, mostly of Alutiiq heritage (Native peoples of Prince William Sound). A…

As part of a larger study of systemic educational reform in rural Alaska, this case study examines implementation of the Alaska Onward to Excellence (AOTE) process in Koyukuk, a small Athabascan village on the Yukon River in western interior Alaska. The village has a K-10 school with an enrollment of 19-41 students during the study period. A…