ESA Innovation
Cultural Responsiveness: What Can Schools Learn from a Workers’ Compensation Trust?
Unfortunately, in the K12 school setting, injuries tend to disproportionately affect those engaged in physical labor, a demographic often characterized by multilingual and multicultural backgrounds. This article explores a transformative journey undertaken by a workers’ compensation trust, a journey rooted in cultural sensitivity and racial equity.
Read MoreBuilding Leadership Capacity for Trauma-Skilled Schools in a Rural Region
Like many Educational Service Agencies (ESAs) across the country, Appalachia Intermediate Unit 8 (AIU8) strives to create customized solutions to challenges that confront its member school districts. Fortunately, less than a year before the COVID-19 challenge arrived, the AIU8 embraced a state funding opportunity to collaborate with the nation’s only Trauma-Skilled™ Schools certification program to create a capacity-building model for addressing school trauma issues in its primarily rural, four-county region.
Read MoreGrowing Teachers: Five Essential Elements of a Large-Scale System of Learning
Growing Teachers: Five Essential Elements of a Large-Scale System of Learning Back to Blog Growing Teachers: Five Essential Elements of a Large-Scale System of Learning March 14, 2023 By: Kristy Kueber-Pope, Growing Readers Specialist, Metropolitan Regional Educational Service Agency. She can be reached by phone at 404-667-4734 and by email at kristy.kueber@mresa.org. Kathy Matthews, Growing Readers…
Read MoreAI and the ESA: Continuing a Conversation
This is Part II of a two-part series about AI and the ESA By Thomas Collins and Susan Leddick “AI will be economically significant precisely because it will make something important much cheaper. What will AI technologies make so cheap? Prediction.” “Organizations can exploit prediction machines by adopting AI tools to assist with executing current…
Read MoreAI and the ESA: Opening a Conversation
by Thomas Collins and Susan Leddick “The world now stands on the cusp of a technological revolution in artificial intelligence and robotics that may prove as transformative for economic growth and human potential as were electrification, mass production, and electronic telecommunications in their eras.” MIT Work of the Future (David Autor, 2019) “Executives need to put…
Read MoreReform Processes that Consider the Local, Rural Context
By Thomas A. Butler, Ph.D., Executive Director, Appalachia Intermediate Unit 8, Altoona, PA Editor’s Note: This Perspectives article is part of a series. Please also read the related research article Getting Better Together: Innovations for Rural Learners and Communities Design Thinking and Improvement Science: Iterative Processes that Solve Problems Considering the Local Context Over the course of…
Read MoreMoving Beyond NCLB: Creating Education Imagineers
By Thomas A. Butler, Ph.D., Executive Director, Appalachia Intermediate Unit 8, Altoona, PA Editor’s Note: This Perspectives article is part of a series. Please also read the related research article Getting Better Together: Innovations for Rural Learners and Communities Education Imagineers view education through a lens of possibility. Let’s be charitable and say that No Child Left…
Read MoreFinding Innovations in Rural School Districts; 3 “Es” the ESA Can Do
Editor’s Note: This Perspectives article is part of a series dedicated to rural schools. Please also read the related research article Getting Better Together: Innovations for Rural Learners and Communities, By Thomas A. Butler, Ph.D., Executive Director, Appalachia Intermediate Unit 8, Altoona, PA “If it wasn’t for the Intermediate Unit, our school district would not be able…
Read MoreInnovative College and Career Readiness in Appalachia
By Dr. Rebecca Roach, Associate Director, Kentucky Educational Development Corporation D.J. was a new student, and like many students attending a new high school, he was not doing well. Although he demonstrated academic potential, he showed little interest in school and even less interest in college. Then Lana Sowders, the Youth Career Connect (YCC) Career…
Read MoreA Historic Look: Creating Pathways to Becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Organization (Part II)
Part 2 of a 2-part series By Melia LaCour Executive Director, Equity in Education, Puget Sound Educational Service District Over a decade ago, the Puget Sound Educational Service District (PSESD) launched a monumental mission to become an Antiracist Multicultural Organization (ARMCO). The early stages of this prolific journey, as captured in Part One of…
Read More