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Home REL Appalachia About REL Appalachia Strengthening Students’ Preparation for College and Careers

Strengthening Students’ Preparation for College and Careers

This partnership supports school and district leaders in northeastern Tennessee and leaders from their regional technical assistance provider, the Niswonger Foundation, to better understand the effectiveness of their existing college and career preparation programs so they can make informed decisions about how to improve students’ college and career readiness. REL Appalachia staff are helping partners address these needs through a series of projects focused on monitoring program implementation and assessing students’ college and career preparation and postsecondary outcomes, including employability skills. These activities will contribute to the short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes described in the partnership logic model below.

Partner districts: Carter County School District, Elizabethton City School District, Greene County School District, Greeneville City School District, Hamblen County School District, Hancock County School District, Kingsport City Schools, Sullivan County School District, Washington County School District

Current Projects

During the first phase of this TCTS project, REL staff support district and Niswonger Foundation partners to develop and prioritize research questions and document data available to monitor implementation of career and college preparation initiatives and student outcomes. Phase II will support Foundation partners to use available data to create user-friendly and replicable data reports to answer those questions identified in phase I. Phase II will also support district partners to properly interpret these data reports and use them to make decisions that impact student access to and success in relevant programs and interventions.

In response to local needs identified by both educators and employers in northeastern Tennessee, REL Appalachia is engaging district and school leaders to enhance their understanding of research-based strategies that build students' employability skills for career success. This training project is intended to help leaders serve young people in varied career pathways, from those considering college to those intending to enter the military or workforce after high school graduation.

No completed projects at this time.

Event Type: In-person Event | Event Date: November 16, 2023
Location: Chattanooga, Tennessee Description: This session at the 2023 National Forum to Advance Rural Education focused on a holistic approach to supporting rural students' preparation for college and careers. Presenters shared research-based strategies...
Event Type: Webinar | Event Date: December 12, 2022
At this workshop, participants learn how logic models can be used to better understand the relationships between college and career preparation programs and their intended outcomes and how a data catalog can be used to identify gaps in currently available...
Product Type: Blog | Publication Date: November 30, 2022
Perhaps you’ve heard about the Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs), and you’ve seen invitations to partner and connect, but you aren’t sure what that might entail. In this blog post, we provide an overview of how REL Appalachia joins forces with...
Product Type: Infographic | Publication Date: August 2022
Teachers, counselors, and school leaders play a vital role in building, assessing, and strengthening four pillars of support students need to graduate from high school with multiple options for the future. This infographic includes an overview of the...
Product Type: Blog | Publication Date: August 03, 2022
As the director of REL Appalachia, I regularly learn about some of the most pressing educational challenges in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia...
Product Type: Resource | Publication Date: June 2022
This Ask An Expert response identifies interventions with evidence of effectiveness for college-and career-readiness outcome domains. Outcome domains for which an intervention has evidence of effectiveness that meets ESSA Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3 requirements...

REL Appalachia Logic Model (106 KB)

REL Appalachia Logic Model