Rural Systemic Initiatives in Science, Mathematics,and Technology Education - RSI: Leadership Fellows for the Texas Rural Systemic Initiative

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AbstractThe Texas Rural Systemic Initiative (TRSI) currently has 450 Teacher Partners roughly divided into 5 regions. The Leadership Development Project intends to select 15 members of this group to give them three years of training to become Leadership Fellows. The group will be diverse in geography (around the state, distributed among the regions), area of expertise (science or mathematics) and grade level (elementary or secondary). The members will commit to the three-years of training up-front.Given the dire need for science and mathematics teachers, especially in rural areas, the Leadership Project opted not to seek the release of teachers from the classroom any more than necessary. The potential Leadership Fellows would participate in the TRSI Leadership Academy for the 3 years. They would be required to participate each year in three four-day intensive sessions, and in addition a one-week summer session at the Texas A & M campus in Corpus Christie. These leadership sessions would emphasize leadership strands as well as major topics associated with systemic reform. The Fellows will form regional groups mentored by regional science and mathematics specialists. The Fellows will be under a learn, implement, share dictum, and thus will be encouraged to communicate with and support each other, especially within regional groups. Electronic communication on a regular basis will be encouraged.There will be a TRSI Leadership Fellows Advisory Board and each of the Fellows will select an advisor from this board. Under the guide of this advisor, the Leader will work on a Fellowship Project with the intent of impacting their school or district. The first year each Fellow will develop their project, which will be implemented in each of the following two years of the project. The evaluator for the Texas RSI will act in the same function for the Leadership Academy. The main source of dissemination is intended to be the Fellows themselves-both through their pronouncement of learn, implement, share, and their expected return to the Leadership Academy to help train future leaders.