Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) West serves four states: Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah. To address the priorities and interests in these states, REL West works in partnership with school districts, state departments of education, and others to use data and research to improve academic outcomes for students. Each partnership focuses on one or more of the following four regional priority topics: educator development, early learning, postsecondary pathways, and support of the whole child.
While schools, districts, state and local support agencies, and other education stakeholders in REL West’s four-state region share many priorities, their specific challenges and needs for research and support can vary. Accordingly, REL West engages in systematic, ongoing assessment of regional education needs to determine how best to target research and provide research-based information, analysis, and analytic support.
REL West's needs-sensing approaches include:
• Actively soliciting input from state and local decisionmakers.
• Analyzing data and policy trends.
• Examining educator and policymaker requests for assistance.
• Collaborating with regional Comprehensive Centers.
• Working with our partners to determine unmet needs.
In response to the diverse needs and priorities of our nine partnerships, REL West engages in a broad range of work. Through in-depth training, coaching, and analytic support, we build the capacity of our partners to address a variety of issues. These include: tackling the complexities of cross-sector data sharing and data use; learning to make evidence-based policy and practice decisions; and addressing challenges that are context- and region-specific, including those unique to rural entities. In addition, REL West conducts applied research that is integrated with the training, coaching, and analytic support we conduct with our partners.