The Green River Regional Educational Cooperative began in 1968 as a better way for districts to bid for supplies and resources.

Today, GRREC provides job training, program mentoring, learning opportunities and more to students, teachers and administrators across 47 southcentral Kentucky districts.

Chief Operating Officer Steven Moats said the modern-day organization has a hand in everything from certification training to STEM programs to cultivating mental health in schools.

“It’s been a real transition from just being about ‘how to get notebooks and folders and office furniture cheaper as a collective co-op’ to ‘how do we have this cooperative in Bowling Green that is our go-to for more than just bidding,’ ” Moats said.

Creative Media Specialist Mindy Alexander said this transition largely began in the 80s and 90s and found a solid foothold after the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 brought more attention to teacher development.

Moats, who began his education career around that time, said professional development before then was primarily done locally at a school level. This opened the door to inconsistent practices and training, one of the primary statewide issues KERA sought to address.

KERA resulted in the creation of eight regional service centers across the state, each with dedicated professional staffs tasked with improving benchmarks set by KERA and the Kentucky Supreme Court’s 1989 decision in Rose v. Council for Better Education.

Moats said these centers employed consultants in subjects like writing and math that nearby districts could look to for guidance.

“Those service centers really became a hub for professional learning, but it didn’t go as deep as it could have,” Moats said. “And then with (changes in) state legislatures and new information and who’s in the in the governor’s seat in the early 2000s, they did away with the regional service centers.”

Regional Service Center No. 2, located on Western Kentucky University’s campus, “started melding together” with GRREC, Moats said, resulting in a new focus on professional development among teachers and administrators.

Moats said the organization has only grown since. In 2012, GRREC was one of the few state-based organizations to receive the federal Race to the Top Grant worth roughly $42 million, and since 2019 alone it has received nearly $30 million in grants.

He said GRREC has strived to “stay on the cutting edge” of the state’s educational needs, from developing programs to distributing information to ensuring progress is supported in the long run.

Alexander said the organization relies on both district feedback and data analysis to determine where their work is most needed.

“We listened to what they needed, but we always went back to the data that showed us what they really needed,” Alexander said. “(We) begin with the end in mind by looking at the data.”

Moats said the organization’s most recent push has been access to mental health resources, especially in the wake of COVID-19.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2022 found 37% of high school students reported poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, while 44% reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the last year.

Moats said the pandemic was a “catalyst” for their current work aimed at helping schools take control of their mental health.

Todd Hazel is director of GRREC’s Project Access, or “Acquiring Clinical Counselors for Equitable Student Services,” which began last July to help place mental health providers in schools across the region.

Project Access program coordinator Ericka McComas-Church recruits college students pursuing careers in counseling, psychology and social work for the program.

Participants are placed with a nearby district for on-the-job experience while providing their services. GRREC helps organize training and mentoring to help see them through.

Hazel said the goal has been to place five students in their first six months, and four have already been assigned across Russellville, Breckinridge County, Butler County and Simpson County. They hope to have 10 placed in the coming year.

He added they have so far partnered with seven of the 35 eligible districts and expects that number will quickly grow as results trickle in.

Hazel said they focus on recruiting “hometown candidates” – individuals with a desire to live and stay in a community for an extended time. They also work with districts to identify specific concerns, such as attendance or socioeconomic status, and place individuals with an interest in that problem.

In its first year, the program offered students $7,500 to cover educational costs and reimbursed districts the cost of a year’s salary up to $70,000. He said in the program’s second year, districts will only pay only half of the student’s salary.

“It gives us time to work with the district so they can find a funding source to continue with the position,” Hazel said.

Project Access often goes hand-in-hand with Project Prevent Safe*PLACE, a five-year federally funded grant aimed at building sustainable mental health support networks in schools.

Project Director Kellie Thompson said they partner with 11 districts to help foster “safe, trusting, trauma-sensitive school environments” through mental health screeners, mental health providers, trauma-informed trainings and changes to how counselors approach their work.

“We focus a lot on building relationships with students to help improve behavior,” Thompson said. “We know all behavior is a form of communication, so the better we understand our students and the more we know about them, then that is going to only help is in any situations around mental health.”

The program has implemented “safe spaces” in several schools to allow students space to take a break and regulate their emotions. Thompson said they also focus on engaging families through mental health discussions so parents understand the resources and challenges before them.

The project has also placed nine mental health professionals in various districts with salaries supported by the program. Thompson said they meet with these professionals monthly to collaborate on ways to better meet a district’s needs.

Beyond the obvious benefit to student accessibility, Thompson said these initiatives also break down the stigma around mental health that discourages open discussion and treatment.

The grant will end Sept. 30 of this year, but Thompson said they have already begun planning for the future with districts to ensure these positions and initiatives are sustainable.

Thompson shared feedback received from various individuals in Barren County School District, many lauding the progress made through Project Safe*PLACE.

“I think we would all agree there’s been a stigma around mental health, and I think this grant has helped us be more aware of the needs, more conscious of those things and serve our students and staff better,” Barren County Associate Superintendent Cortni Crews stated.

Director of Nutrition Services and Afterschool Programs Cheyanne Fant said the program has helped tie mental wellness to overall wellness without stigma.

Mental health is only one piece of GRREC’s extensive programming. The STEM-CS program aims to bring science, technology, engineering and math education to students who otherwise may miss out.

Funded through a federal five-year Education Innovation and Research grant, the program aims to improve teachers’ knowledge and implementation of STEM and computer science education while fostering student engagement.

Program Director Terri Stice said despite a growing need for computer science education, Kentucky lacks a teacher certification in the field.

GRREC’s program required participants to receive a STEM certificate through online courses with Columbia University and encouraged them to seek out dual certification and rank changes.

It also developed “micro-credentials” through online modules, based around Kentucky academic standards for computer science. These micro-credentials have been approved by the Kentucky Department of Education and those who complete them receive a teaching certificate endorsement.

“So any high school teacher that’s certified, no matter the content they’re certified to teach, they can complete the modules, pass that, and once they’ve passed, we submit their names to Frankfort and they add that endorsement,” Stice said. “They can then teach any computer science courses in that building.”

Stice said several districts last fall were able to offer computer sciences and engineering classes for the first time ever thanks to these micro-certifications.

The program also emphasizes lesson plans that ground STEM to its real world applications.

“In order for kids to really get it, they’ve got to go a lot deeper into the content than what they maybe were doing in the past,” Stice said.

The second component of the grant aims to improve access to STEM opportunities for high-need, rural students.

Stice wanted to combat the misconception that STEM fields are “specifically for highly gifted kids in science and math only.” They wanted to show students that “all kids are perfectly capable of pursing STEM if they have the right pathways and encouragement.”

Special education populations specifically, Stice said, have been a focus of their work. Many students with autism or physical disabilities find considerable success studying computer science, for example.

GRREC has partnered with local chambers of commerce to place teachers in short-term “externships” with companies like Logan Aluminum and The Medical Center so they better understand how to prepare students for a STEM career.

Stice said the program has also created STEM-a-THON, an annual showcase of all things STEM, to appeal directly to student populations. Last December, over 750 students from 30 different schools came to Knicely Conference Center to participate in a variety of games and learning sessions.

Students also got the chance to meet potential future employers, such as Kentucky State Police and the National Corvette Museum, to learn about how they utilize STEM in the workplace.

Teachers from across the region are encouraged to bring a large number of special needs students, as well as general education students, to give them a unique chance at taking part in the field.

The STEM-CS grant will also end in September, but Stice said they are looking toward additional grant opportunities to keep the momentum going.

Even if they are unable to secure funding, she said districts have bought into the initiative so much that she expects them to continue the work regardless.

“They have people within (each district) that have the credentials and the experiences now,” Stice said. “They can do the work themselves, and they don’t need us to lead it. They can truly be their own leaders because of the supports that we’ve given those teachers.”