The Research Triangle Schools Partnership (RTSP) is a multi-faceted project developed to facilitate the provision of university-school educational collaboration between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and four local school districts (Chapel Hill/Carrboro, Chatham, Durham, and Orange. RTSP engages pre-kindergarten -12 public school faculty, administrators, parents and university personnel in a wide variety of collaborative activities and research projects to promote the professional development of public school teachers and impact student learning.

Beginning in 2001, multiple schools across districts were asked to come together for four years to work in five unique project strands related to common educational themes (Arts/Aesthetics, Culture/Community, Literacy, Teacher Continuum, and Transitions). Technology Integration is a new strand that was added for the 2002-2003 school year. The present structure allows staff from several schools and/or districts participating in each strand to work collaboratively with faculty from the University to establish a cooperative community of best practices in the schools.

As part of the evaluation of RTSP, evaluation specialists with EvAP will continue to provide technical support such as designing research and evaluation instruments, promoting data collection, and working with various stakeholders to analyze and report data findings to five of the six research strands.

Research Triangle Schools Partnership www.unc.edu/
depts/ed/rtsp