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Working closely with State Superintendent of Schools, Nancy Grasmick, MSSA maintains an annual calendar of events to support school districts. The 24 school districts in the state have been divided into four regions: central and northern Maryland, central and southern Maryland, western Maryland and the eastern shore. MSSA's regional and program coordinators assist school districts with their service-learning through many different activities. Coordinators may:

• catalyze regional meetings
• participate in school district service-learning advisory boards or local team meetings
• support the district level service-learning contact as they implement and enhance their local program by using the Next Steps assessment tool
• facilitate teacher training
• provide subgrants to support school district programs
• conduct outreach and education to community based organizations and higher education institutions
• visit schools to observe programs and provide suggestions for quality enhancement
• sponsor an annual Convening of Service-Learning Leaders
• host an annual statewide conference for students, teachers and administrators
• provide feedback on programs at the school level using Maryland's Best Practices for service-learning
• recognize outstanding student service through an annual Service Stars event.
• form community, higher education, and school partnerships such as our NASA-funded IDEAS project.

• The Local Education Agency leaders (LEAs) oversee the implementation of service-learning in their school districts. We annually recognize four LEAs for their efforts with an Excellence Award.
• Fellows are teacher-leaders who run exemplary service-learning programs and who are willing to share their expertise and enthusiasm with their peers.
• Model Program teachers have created instruction guides for replicating their outstanding service-learning projects. They also mentor replication site teachers.
• Youth RISE is a youth program for middle and high school student leaders who are enthusiastic about service-learning and want to help people better understand its meaning, purpose and value. All of MSSA's statewide programs and networks added together create Maryland's unique Service-Learning Leadership Program.

For service-learning to flourish and be of high quality in every school throughout Maryland, it is essential for local service-learning leaders to work together to achieve this goal. MSSA collaborates with other service-learning advocates throughout Maryland including Volunteer Maryland! (part of AmeriCorps), and the Maryland Governor's Office on Service and Volunteerism.

It is the mission of the Maryland Student Service Alliance to institutionalize high quality service-learning for students in all Maryland K-12 public school and to encourage its application in schools across the United States.