Brian D. Reid, Charleston, IL, RSC Advocate

Brian Reid began his teaching career as an elementary teacher in rural Missouri (660 students in a P-12 district). He has degrees in elementary education, special education, gifted education and a Ph.D. with a focus on measurement and evaluation and gifted education (Connecticut). He has taught in elementary classrooms and programs for special education and gifted students. He served as senior research associate at the National Research Center for Gifted and Talented before moving to UAB to prepare future teachers in special and gifted education, where he also developed the Special Education Technology Lab. While at UAB, Brian wrote and managed grants, including an exchange program for high school students between Birmingham and Russia and the Special Education Technology Lab at UAB. He also served as president of Alabama CCBD and ALA-TAG, and initiated the ASCD Network on Developing Talent. At Eastern Illinois University he led School & University Partnerships, which included both a PDS network and a variety of grant funded projects. These projects included integrating technology in teacher education, beginning teachers, web-based courses for teacher education. He has served on the executive board of the Illinois Association for the Gifted (IAG) and IL CCBD. At the University of Indianapolis, he served as Associate Dean for Policy and Partnership for the Center of Excellence in Leadership of Leaning (CELL). His projects included a Network of Schools, high school transformation, rural schools, and research review teams that connected practitioners and researchers to investigate and share evidence based practices in reading, family engagement, student engagement, technology, and change leadership.

Currently, he is retired and working as adjunct faculty at EIU. He teaches an occasional course and manages grant projects on RtI/MTSS. He has been working with the Coles County Time Out to connect schools, non-profits, churches, agencies and EIU to work more closely together.

Brian is excited about the Rural School Collaborative and is facilitating the emerging Central Illinois Rural School Collaborative. Rural schools in Illinois are in a difficult period with the fiscal and political crises that exists. We want to develop a network of networks across Illinois to provide support and connections for our rural schools and communities that connects to others across the nation.