The Foundation for Rural Education Excellence, a registered 501 (C)(3) organization, was founded in 1998 to facilitate philanthropic support for rural school districts of the North East Florida Educational Consortium (NEFEC): Baker, Bradford, Columbia, Dixie, Flagler, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Lafayette, Levy, Nassau, Putnam, Suwannee, and Union Counties as well as Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind and PK Yonge Developmental Research School. Working collaboratively, our mission is to enhance academic success and career opportunities for rural students in northeast Florida.

On August 10^th, all of NEFEC’s 15 member districts welcomed back students for their first day of school.

Over 80 NEFEC educators attended a two-day training on Progress Monitoring at the Saw Grass Marriott in Ponte Vedra.

Each district sent teams of leaders to this professional learning event designed to train trainers. Reset, Reflect, and Refine were the topics on which the progress monitoring work was centered. Districts collaborated with one another on how to make progress monitoring a priority while implementing B.E.S.T. standards and rolling out the new F.A.S.T assessments. Time was spent exploring existing data, determining the value of data, and how data is used to determine future instruction.

This was the beginning of a series of events that will take place throughout the 2022-2023 school year to support NEFEC districts.

Elementary Rural Connect educators begin Phase 3 in September. Phase 3, called Practice Connected Support, will provide K-5 teachers, coaches, and administrators with virtual learning and ongoing help in mastering content from the 2021 Summer Literacy Institute and the 2021-2022 Rural Connect sessions.

Participants will access Practice Connected Support through Moodle, which has been updated and improved specifically for this project. Moodle will include information on each of the key concepts from Rural Connect, discussion forums, and instructional videos. Coaches from the NEFEC region will facilitate bite-sized professional learning on key literacy topics and strategies.

FREE's annual golf tournament is scheduled for March 24, 2023, at The Palatka Golf Club.

Summer Leadership Conference

NEFEC's Annual Summer Leadership Conference is scheduled for July 10-11, 2023, at the Sawgrass Marriott in