2026 AAEA Summer Conference

Rural schools have worked hard to expand opportunity for students through pathways, partnerships, credentials, concurrent credit, regional collaboration, and local innovation. But creating opportunity and helping students successfully navigate it are not the same thing. This session makes the case for the next phase of rural education work: building coherent systems that make opportunities visible, understandable, and usable — for students and families, and for the educators and leaders trying to serve them.