Jeff Hawkins & Dessie Bowling, Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative
Wednesday, August 1, 4:30-5:00, SUB Ballroom C, Theme: Partnership
The Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative (KVEC) is comprised of 22 rural Appalachian public school districts. KVEC serves over 50,000 students and 3,000 educators through an intentional focus on Teaching, Leadership and Learning. The powerful work taking place in our rural region has impacted educational practices across the nation as evidenced by the multiple partnerships and collaborations currently underway and is contributing to the resurgence in educational achievement in Appalachia.
KVEC’s overarching mission is to lead and direct sustainable systemic improvement that drives education reform and improves student achievement through innovation in systems design, resource use, and human capital development. There are three broad aims that guide KVEC’s work: building agency (including autonomy, mastery, purpose), inspiring hope and fostering trust in self and others.
KVEC actively engages a unified network of schools committed to: putting students first with a willingness to share resources and strategies across school/district boundaries, developing/maintaining the capacity to engage broad cross-sections of the community in a systemic process for positive change, and the drive to recreate the landscape of rural education.
The interactive presentation will include information and context for the range and scope of initiatives and strategies that work together to build a regional system of fulcrums and levers that, when combined, can lift a community and a region. Presentation components will include: micro-investments in Innovation, FIRE Summits (Forging Innovation in Rural Education), Professional Action Networks, theholler.org (a place-based social learning network), Building it Forward (Tiny House Initiative), Community Share (on-line community engagement strategy), etc.