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Educational Renewal Zone

In 2003 the Arkansas General Assembly established Education Renewal Zones across the state to promote collaboration among public schools, education service cooperatives, colleges and universities, and parents and communities.


The Western Arkansas Education Renewal Zone was established in 2005 to address the needs of schools in Crawford, Franklin, Johnson, Sebastian, Logan, and Scott counties. Located on the UAFS campus, the Western Arkansas ERZ's objective is to improve student achievement. Centralizing resources among ERZ partners allows schools in Western Arkansas greater access to instructional, financial, cultural, and technological support.

UAFS's ERZ office is located in Echols 109 and is led by Robyn Dawson. She can be reached by phone at 479-788-7356 or email at Robyn.Dawson@uafs.edu.

ERZ Mission Statement & Goals

The mission of the ERZ initiative is to collaborate with Pre-K-16 educators, students, families, and their supporting communities in order to combine efforts to improve achievement and learning experiences for all students.

Goal 1: Each ERZ partner school has a comprehensive professional development program aligned to the growth needs of staff and learning goals of students that is redesigned as Common Core state standards and college and career readiness skills are implemented in the curriculum. 

Goal 1a: Changes to pre-service education are made at the Institution of Higher Education to prepare candidates for implementing Common Core state standards and college and career readiness skills in the public school classroom. 

Goal 2: Students in ERZ partner schools have access to a rigorous, intentionally aligned P-K-16 curriculum which incorporates Common Core state standards and college and career readiness skills.

Goal 3: Students and teachers in ERZ schools have an appropriate mentoring program to support the implementation of Common Core state standards and college and career readiness skills. Teacher candidates have an appropriate mentoring support system.

Goal 4: ERZ partner schools have a plan in place to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers to support the implementation of Common Core state standards and college and career readiness skills. The institution of higher education has a plan for sharing  faculty with partner schools in core subject areas.

Goal 5: Each ERZ partner school has a parent and community involvement plan that will be redesigned to support the implementation of Common Core state standards and college and career readiness skills. 


Goal 6: There is collaboration among the institution of higher education partners, education service centers, partner schools, and communities to accomplish the mission of the ERZ. Activities of the ERZ address the needs of partners and are designed to strengthen the partnerships. There is sufficient networking among partners to support processes for building leadership capacity and integrating the Common Core state standards.


Partner School Districts

Alma, Cedarville, Charleston, Fort Smith, Hackett, Hartford, Lavaca, Mansfield, Ozark, Paris, Waldron.