This SXSW EDU panel brings together rural education leaders from Texas, Colorado, and Indiana. They share how Rural Collaboratives help districts pool resources, expand college and career pathways, coordinate with employers and higher education, and preserve opportunity within rural communities.

Elevating Rural Colorado shares five years of investment, learning, and partnership focused on improving outcomes for rural students and communities in Colorado. The report highlights lessons from rural education work, regional collaboration, and efforts to strengthen opportunity through local capacity, shared strategy, and sustained support.

Rural leaders share how collaboration, workforce investment, place-based learning, policy, and storytelling can expand opportunity for students in small communities.

The Rural Collaborative Toolkit is a step-by-step guide for planning, designing, implementing, and sustaining rural school collaboratives. The toolkit helps rural leaders build shared vision, governance, partnerships, funding, implementation plans, and long-term systems of support for cross-district collaboration.

Support for Rural Colorado Schools examines how philanthropy and districts came together to serve students during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The resource highlights the needs of rural Colorado schools, promising practices from early responses, and opportunities for funders to support rural communities.

The Third Way is a guide to implementing Innovation Schools and creating autonomous, accountable district schools. The resource explains how districts can give schools real flexibility over staffing, budget, curriculum, and operations while maintaining public accountability and creating conditions for innovation.

Autonomous District Schools examines how U.S. school districts can create autonomous district schools that provide flexibility, accountability, and innovation at scale. The report explores how autonomous district school models differ from traditional district and charter schools and what districts should consider when designing them.

Denver’s Luminary Learning Network examines how a group of Denver public school leaders pursued greater autonomy over decision-making, finances, and operations for Innovation Schools. The case study highlights governance, district partnership, and the conditions that supported a new approach to school-level flexibility.

From Innovation Schools to an Innovation Zone in Denver, Colorado explores the design features of Innovation Zones and the early development of Denver’s model. The resource highlights how school-level autonomy, governance, and partnership structures can help protect innovation inside public school systems.

The “City of Firsts” Charts a New Path on Turnaround examines the Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership as a turnaround strategy and governance model in Springfield, Massachusetts. The resource explores how SEZP created a new path for school improvement through autonomy, accountability, and partnership.