R-PEP 101 is Empower Schools’ practical guide to Rural Pathway Excellence Partnerships, a Texas model that helps rural districts work together to expand college and career pathways. The guide explains how policy, funding, higher education partnerships, and workforce collaboration can support rural students and communities.

Empower Schools created The Texas Partnerships Toolkit, bringing together statewide data, local examples, and practical tools to help communities understand how Texas Partnerships work, what they are accomplishing, and what high-quality implementation can look like.

This national guide examines six work-based learning programs and the policies, partnerships, staffing, funding, and infrastructure that help career-connected learning succeed. Four of the featured programs are supported by Empower Schools.

Created and published by the Texas Education Agency in partnership with Empower Schools, this guide walks Texas districts through assessing community need, selecting a pre-K partnership structure, combining funding sources, authorizing an operating partner, and meeting staffing, enrollment, and regulatory requirements.