Chapter 2: Germinating, Growing, and Renewing a District-University Partnership to Prepare Rural School Leaders

Many rural school districts across the United States struggle to recruit and retain high-quality principals. To address these challenges, researchers point to grow your own programs as one way to address critical principal shortages that rural districts often face. University-district partnerships can provide the capacity for rural districts to grow their own leaders. Such partnerships are also key to providing authentic learning experiences for aspiring principals. Further, university-district partnerships may promote deep changes in the quality of leadership preparation. Drawing on these understandings, the Principal Preparation for Excellence and Equity in Rural Schools (PPEERS) program involves a partnership amongst 11 rural districts in North Carolina, the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and the Southern Regional Education Board. The PPEERS partnership aims to develop strong, sustainable leadership pipelines within partner districts. This chapter provides an overview of PPEERS, discusses the benefits and challenges of rural partnerships, and examines the processes of germinating/initiating, growing/developing, and sustaining/renewing a district-university partnership for preparing leaders for high-needs, rural schools.