Chapter 10: A Serve Retrospective on School Improvement: Lessons Learned

In this book, contributors have narrated their experiences across a total of eight interventions or projects intended directly or indirectly to improve public schools in the Southeastern US, the geographic footprint of the federally funded regional education laboratory (REL) called SERVE. Although an organizational descendent lives on in the form of The SERVE Center at UNCG, we have bounded our narrative to the period more-or-less encompassing our contemporaneous employment in the REL. In telling our story, we have striven to state the facts, supported by interviews, archival evidence, and relevant research. But we also have valued the stories and in-the-moment reflection on practice that both grounded and enriched our former partnerships.