Mission Statement
The Office is the service arm of the College of Education and serves as the liaison between the College and the school districts in the EKU service region and beyond.
A principal service function of the office is the Southeast/South-Central Educational Cooperative. The director of the office serves as the director of the Cooperative. The College of Education releases the director from his 6-hour teaching load to provide this leadership for the Cooperative. The COE, through its trust fund monies, fully funds the salary of an assistant director for the Cooperative. The Cooperative provides regular monthly meetings for its superintendents, the instructional supervisors/professional development coordinators, and the P-12 principals in the member districts. The Cooperative provides extensive professional development training for teachers, administrators, and non-certified staff in the 25 districts that hold membership in the Cooperative. Districts outside the Cooperative are invited to attend these professional development opportunities.
The Office of P-12 School Partnership also houses and operates the Kentucky Teacher Internship Program for the EKU service region. The Director’s time and support for this program is provided free of charge by the COE. The director is a certified Commonwealth trainer for the program and as such conducts numerous training sessions for KTIP committee members. The assistant director also manages a budget from the Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board to operate the program in the EKU service region and to assign and pay university personnel who serve as Teacher Educators on KTIP committees.
The Office of P-12 School Partnership assists in the management of the College of Education’s Center for the Renewal of schools and the Education Professions by managing the Professional Education Fellows program and by scheduling and conducting cutting-edge educational conferences. The Fellows program provides university faculty to work directly in P-12 settings over a 3-year period to assist the P-12 faculty in addressing an identified growth need in the school. This partnership arrangement is provided to the schools at no cost.