Regional Needs  |  Projects

Pacific: American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Hawaii, Northern Mariana Islands, Republic of the Marshall Islands, & Republic of Palau

The Pacific region is comprised of American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI); the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM)—Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap; Guam; Hawai'i; the Republic of the Marshall Islands; and the Republic of Palau. The prevailing regional needs and challenges include three overarching areas: strengthening teacher effectiveness, engaging families and communities in education, and ensuring career and college readiness. Optimizing data readiness among stakeholders is a dominant need across these three areas.

Research Alliances

REL Pacific serves the needs of the Pacific Region through the following research alliances:

• Strengthening Teacher Effectiveness in the Freely Associated States (FAS): This Alliance focuses on teacher preparation, professional development, and classroom effectiveness.
• Pacific Alliance for Student Success (PASS):s This Alliance focuses on migrant students in Hawai'i schools, their strengths and challenges, and models that can be used to successfully engage families.
• Engaging Families and Communities in Guam: This Alliance parallels the Hawai'i Alliance, focusing on migrant populations in Guam.
• Ensuring Career and College Readiness in American Samoa and the CNMI: This Alliance focuses on the education and career pathways taken by students upon completion of their secondary education, to improve systems support for student success.
• Optimizing Data in the Freely Associated States (FAS): This Alliance focuses on mapping the ways in which data in the FAS flow through the education system, how they are interpreted, and how they influence decision making.
• Hawai'i: This Alliance focuses on leveraging education data across the educational spectrum to address critical gaps in the State of Hawai'i's improvement initiatives, including the implementation of the Statewide Longitudinal Data.

Corporate Experience

McREL has decades of experience in working in the Pacific, including staff development, school leadership, standards development and alignment, technology, teacher evaluation, and research. REL Pacific staff and partners have significant and broad regional experience providing needs-sensing, research, evaluation, and technical assistance, including administering multiple REL contracts, developing relationships with elected and education leaders and practitioners, strengthening schools and communities, and planning and successfully implementing multi-year, complex programs of work.

Lab Director:
Dr. Nolan Malone
Governing Board