The Sylacauga City School District in Alabama is the winner of the Southern Regional Education Board’s 2024 District Leadership Award.  The district received the honor for its commitment to engaging instruction, professional development and quality career pathways.

The school system was presented with the award on July 9 at the 2024 SREB Making Schools Work Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. 

SREB’s District Leadership Award recognizes local school districts that implement continuous improvement processes that help schools transform their school and classroom practices, establish and sustain change, and increase student achievement. 

The Sylacauga schools implement Making Schools Work, SREB’s school improvement design that employs a distributed leadership approach to involve the whole school in identifying problems of practice that impact student engagement and achievement and developing plans to solve them.

Alabama State Department of Education data show that in report cards for the 2022-23 school year, Sylacauga City Schools received a B overall, with increased scores in all four schools in the district . The report card highlights improvements in academic achievement, growth in math and literacy proficiency, and steady increases in graduation rates and college and career readiness.

Sylacauga High School has the highest number of students taking dual enrollment courses at Central Alabama Community College. SREB technical assistance visits, career pathway reviews and curriculum and instructional reviews have helped the high district with strong strategic planning to meet their goals.

SREB’s Making Schools Work Conference is held annually and provides educators with opportunities to participate in professional development, network with colleagues from across the country and build school and district leadership capacity.

Contact: Janita Poe, SREB News Manager, at Janita.Poe@sreb.org or 404-879-5516, ext. 216

The Southern Regional Education Board works with states, districts and schools to improve education at every level, from early childhood through doctoral education and the workforce. An interstate compact and a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Atlanta, SREB was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislators to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region.