Rural Literacy Leaders Fellowship
The Rural Literacy Leaders Fellowship is a collaborative network for rural K-2 elementary principals committed to building coherent literacy systems through strong MTSS practices, aligned assessments, and instructional leadership that helps every student thrive as a reader.
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Rural leaders often work tirelessly to lead important literacy initiatives in their schools, with few opportunities for distributing leadership. The challenge is sustaining strong practices and momentum without overextending their team—or themselves.
The Rural Literacy Leaders Fellowship is designed to help K-2 elementary principals move beyond disconnected literacy initiatives toward aligned systems that drive instructional decisions, support teachers, and accelerate student outcomes.
Why Rural Schools?
Rural schools are doing some of the most important—and most underestimated—work in education today.
Rural principals are often leading literacy improvement while simultaneously managing staffing shortages, daily operational demands, student social-emotional support, and community responsibilities. In many communities, school leaders carry broad responsibility for both student outcomes and community trust.
At the same time, rural schools possess extraordinary strengths.
A rural principal knows the name of the student who had a hard night at home, which teacher is ready to try something new, and which family needs a personal call before they’ll trust a change in their child’s instruction. When a rural school decides to move, it can move.
A shared commitment made in a staff meeting on Monday can be visible in every classroom by Wednesday. And when strong literacy practices genuinely take hold, they don’t stay in one room: they travel down the hallway, across grade levels, and into the way students talk about reading and writing as a normal part of every school day.
But too often, rural leaders are asked to lead complex instructional improvement work with limited access to:
- sustained implementation support,
- leadership coaching and mentorship,
- high-quality professional learning grounded in rural contexts,
- peer learning networks that reduce professional isolation,
- and practical opportunities to solve challenges alongside others facing similar realities.
Leading Educators wants to change that.
Read the overview!Our Solution
The Rural Literacy Leaders Fellowship was created specifically for K-2 rural leaders because rural schools deserve implementation support designed for their context—not borrowed approaches built for larger systems with fundamentally different infrastructure and capacity.
Rural principals are balancing competing priorities and rising expectations for evidence-based literacy instruction while ensuring students receive the support they need every day. The challenge is ensuring that assessment, intervention, instructional support, teacher collaboration, and leadership priorities work together.
Through a structured arc of learning, coaching, implementation support, and peer collaboration, principals strengthen their ability to lead schoolwide literacy improvement that is practical, data-informed, and sustainable over time. Principals develop the structures and leadership practices needed to strengthen MTSS implementation, support effective grade-level data conversations, improve progress monitoring, and ensure instructional decisions are responsive to student needs.
Rather than adding another layer of work, the fellowship helps leaders create greater coherence across existing literacy priorities so teachers, interventionists, and leadership teams are working toward a shared vision for student success.
How It Works
A High-Impact Capacity-Building Experience
The Fellowship functions as a close-knit community of 15-20 K-2 elementary principals who bring unique perspectives to common challenges.
From August to May, they:
- build the conditions for a sustainable, schoolwide literacy assessment system,
- create a coherent literacy assessment roadmap aligned to early reading development,
- strengthen diagnostic assessment and progress monitoring practices to better inform instruction and intervention,
- lead improvement cycles that use student data to drive responsive small-group teaching and intervention,
- facilitate focused, high-impact data conversations that support stronger instructional decision-making.
They receive practical implementation support through individualized coaching, school-based application and feedback, collaborative planning, and peer learning.
This is not typical professional development. It’s ongoing planning and implementation work grounded directly in a school’s goals, students, and implementation realities.
The 2026–27 fellowship builds on what we learned through our first cohort of rural Mississippi schools, where principals consistently emphasized the value of practical support, sustained coaching, and collaboration with peers facing similar implementation challenges.
Why This Fellowship Model Works
Strong literacy outcomes are shaped by what students experience every day.
That means sustainable improvement requires more than isolated workshops or more initiatives. It requires leaders to have ongoing opportunities to strengthen instructional decision-making, support teachers effectively, refine intervention systems, and solve implementation challenges in real time.
That’s the capacity the Fellowship is designed to build. One assistant superintendent shares:
Preview the application“I became more intentional about looking for evidence of explicit instruction in foundational skills, how teachers use diagnostic data to group students, and whether students are actively practicing the skills being taught.”
The fellowship includes several key components: an intensive launch experience, monthly coaching, school-based application, instructional leadership support, and peer learning across contexts.
Launch the year by strengthening your vision for literacy improvement and developing a focused implementation plan grounded in assessment, instruction, intervention, and teacher support.
During virtual half-day sessions featuring expert speakers aligned with the cycle’s content, principals are supported in internalizing and practicing the professional learning they will lead in their schools.
Throughout the year, leaders strengthen their ability to lead instructional improvement through individualized coaching, implementation support, school visits, and collaborative planning grounded in their school’s goals and realities.
Leaders join a network of rural principals working together to create stronger, more sustainable literacy experiences for students across their schools and communities. That means opportunities for collaborative problem-solving, resource sharing, and developing trusting relationships.
Meet the Team!
Dr. Mitchell Brookins
Dr. Heather Zuerblis
Nicholas Cains
Rashay Foster
Rebecca Dill
About Dr. Mitchell Brookins
He has presented at Amplify’s Symposium, PaTTAN Literacy Symposium, Keys to Literacy, The Reading League Summit, the Black Men in Education Convening, the Black Literacy Matters Conference, and the Dyslexia Alliance for Black Children Conference. He also leads a citywide literacy fellowship in partnership with New Schools for New Orleans, supporting over 40 literacy leaders across the city.
As Managing Director at Leading Educators, he drives system-level change in Jackson Public Schools, Baltimore City Schools, San Mateo-Foster City School District, and Omaha Public Schools, and serves on the Board of Directors for The Reading League.
He holds a B.A. in Elementary Education, an M.A. in Teacher Leadership, and a Ph.D. in Educational Administration.
Dr. Mitchell Brookins in the news
About Dr. Heather Zuerblis
In her current role as Senior Director of Science of Reading at Leading Educators, Dr. Zuerblis directs the organization’s Rural Literacy Leaders Fellowship, its first major initiative focused on supporting rural communities. Previously at Leading Educators, she served as a Director on the Baltimore project, where she partnered with Baltimore City Public Schools to drive significant system-level growth. For the first time in over a decade, the district recorded gains in literacy on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—a one-point increase directly tied to the district-wide improvements she helped lead.
Dr. Zuerblis earned her doctorate in Educational Policy and Leadership with a concentration in Early Literacy Intervention from American University. Her dissertation focused on the experiences of BIPOC school principals in Washington, D.C., as they strategically implemented programming aligned to the science of reading. She also holds a Master’s in Reading Education from Boston University and a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education from James Madison University.
Dr. Heather Zuerblis in the news
About Nicholas Cains
At Leading Educators, he has served in various roles, including Instructional Leadership Coach, Director of Content and Coaching, and Director of Adult Learning. He has partnered with districts to scale high-impact professional learning, coaching more than 50+ teacher leaders and instructional coaches to advance, coach, and scale structured literacy practices across 100% of elementary schools. He also codified and scaled a research-based coaching model in collaboration with 10 cross-functional teams and 23 subject matter experts.
As Designer and Coach for the Rural Literacy Network, he leverages this expertise to strengthen literacy leadership and drive systems-level instructional improvement in Desoto County Schools District, Senatobia Municipal Schools District, and South Tippah County Schools.
He holds a Master’s Degree in Education Administration: Curriculum & Supervision from The University of Oklahoma-Tulsa and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Southern Methodist University.
Nicholas Cains in the news
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Teaching While Black and Male
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Webinar: Virtual Teacher Support and PD with Google for Education
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Taking Coherence Across the Chasm
About Rashay Foster
Rashay currently serves as a Director of Content and Coaching at Leading Educators, where she leads professional learning and coaching initiatives to support district and school leaders. In Charleston, she supported literacy work that contributed to an 18% gain in ELA achievement. She now serves on the Rural Literacy team, where she supports leaders with building sustainable systems for small group literacy instruction.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education from The Ohio State University, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Marian University, and has completed both the Building Level Administrator program at Marian University and the Harvard University School Management and Leadership Program.
About Rebecca Dill
Over 6.5 years at Leading Educators, Rebecca has served as Executive Assistant to the leadership team, Program Manager, and now Associate Director. SAs Program Manager and now Associate Director, Rebecca has strengthened organizational operations by implementing systems that ensured 100% on-time delivery of workshop materials and deadlines across multiple streams of work. She has led logistics for events serving up to 250 participants, consistently achieving over 90% satisfaction ratings, with several workshops earning 100% effectiveness scores. Beyond logistics, she has expanded design support through video editing, graphic design, and resource development, contributing to 100% usage of coaching templates in partner sessions. She strengthened team coordination and accountability by introducing tools like Asana to streamline workflows, while also advancing data capabilities through automated dashboards that enabled real-time analysis and visualization.
Before joining Leading Educators, Rebecca worked at The Chicago Community Trust, Active Transportation Alliance, and Bluestem Communications, where she managed environmental education programs and supported business development initiatives.
Rebecca holds a Master of Science in Public Service Management from DePaul University and a Bachelor of Science in Geology from The College of William and Mary.
