When Norma Sermon-Boyd moved to Spotsylvania County, Va. nearly 41 years ago, the young teacher was placed in a 9th-grade science class in rural Virginia. She recalls young kids brought from home the lungs, livers, and hearts of livestock for genuine show-and-tell demonstrations of animal organs. "I've seen it all," says Sermon-Boyd, who now lives in Trenton, N.C.

In the four decades since, Sermon-Boyd has taught at almost every grade level, including higher education. She's served as a principal and superintendent and was appointed by the North Carolina governor to a task force on education needs of the 21st century.

These days she focuses on early childhood education with North Carolina's Smart Start program and the Jones County (N.C.) Partnership for Children. She also chairs the REL Southeast Governing Board. The Governing Board includes chief state education officers in the region and, Sermon-Boyd notes, serves as an important forum to talk about important issues with decision makers.

In remarks at last month's biannual REL directors meeting in Washington, Sermon-Boyd outlined several challenges in the Southeast: reducing high poverty rates, closing achievement gaps, improving early childhood education, reforming high schools, and preparing high-quality teachers.

Sermon-Boyd is also concerned with frequent rollover in education leadership posts such as principals and superintendents. "It takes time," she said, "to get a handle on bringing about change." Without on-the-job experience, these leaders need the RELs to point them to sound research to guide their decisions that affect so many schoolchildren.