The Oxford City School District in Oxford, Alabama, is the winner of the Southern Regional Education Board’s 2026 District Leadership Award. The district received the honor for its commitment to data-driven instructional priorities and achieving significant gains in student accountability ratings.

The school system will be presented with the award on July 14 at the 2026 SREB Making Schools Work Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

SREB’s District Leadership Award recognizes local school districts that helped schools transform their school and classroom practices, establish and sustain change, and increase student achievement. 

Oxford city schools implemented SREB’s Making Schools Work school improvement framework, which uses a distributed leadership approach to identify problems of practice that impact student engagement and achievement and develop plans to solve them.

Oxford City Schools reached a new milestone in student achievement by moving from a “B” to an “A” accountability rating over a three-year period. This growth was driven by a district-wide commitment to establishing clear instructional priorities aligned with grade-level standards and SREB’s Powerful Instructional Practices, with a specific focus on strengthening mathematics instruction.

Rather than viewing these priorities as compliance measures, leaders and teachers embraced them as shared commitments to student success. By partnering with SREB to enhance leadership capacity and coaching effectiveness, the district moved from isolated initiatives to a coherent, unified system. This approach bridged the gap between curriculum, instruction and assessment, resulting in more consistent classroom practices and greater clarity for teachers. Oxford’s success proves that when data-driven decision-making is combined with strong accountability and local context, systemic improvement becomes a reality.

SREB’s annual Making Schools Work Conference provides educators with opportunities to participate in professional development, network with colleagues from across the country and build school and district leadership capacity.

Contact: Beth Day, Communications Vice President, at Beth.Day@sreb.org 

The Southern Regional Education Board works with states, districts and schools to improve education at every level, from early childhood through doctoral education and the workforce. An interstate compact and a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Atlanta, SREB was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislators to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region.