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  The Rural Innovative School Leadership Networked Improvement Community (RISL_NIC) is unlike most other practice research partnerships. It is organic, rather than top-down; university researchers do not approach their rural thought leader practitioner partners with “answers” to their persistent and complex problems of practice. Instead, our NIC consists of a non-hierarchical network of parallel partnerships, focused on improving learning. The research partners provide coaching and technical assistance to support peer learning among their practitioner partners; this process also offers training for the researchers, for whom this approach may be unique. The RISL_NIC currently has participants from 43 states. An article in Education Week (Superville, 2020) features a story about our work: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2020/01/22/will-academia-give-rural-schools-the-attention.html