Thriving Together: Connecting Rural School Improvement and Community Development

Thriving Together is designed to give you the background information and basic tools you need to get started with a joint school-community development effort. It includes worksheets to help you get started with your project and an extensive resources section to link you to other organizations and publications.

Education that links school and community can restore students' sense of purpose, by helping them to become effective community members as well as productive workers. A central element of this approach is attention to place. by looking to, and at, the local community -- recognizing "the strength of places and cultures that have usually been identified by their putative weaknesses" -- students gain a better understanding of their roles and responsibilities in family, community, and society.

Sample chapters are available online.