This report discusses low-performing school districts identified by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL). It is based on a 5-year contract in which SEDL tried to transform low-performing schools in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas into high-performing learning communities. The first part of the paper describes the preparation that SEDL undertook for identifying the districts within the five states and the criteria for the selection of sites. A second section gives a brief account of SEDL's experiences in recruiting the sites and its initial work at each locale. The third section identifies and describes the sites in which SEDL is currently working and the status of the project at the end of FY01. The sources of data for the descriptions and charts are the site coordinator, site specialists, and Web sites maintained by the U.S. government or the five state education agencies. SEDL was working at 17 sites by the end of FY01. Most of these were composed of a district team and two schools associated with the district. Although the district sites range widely in size, they all face high poverty, low performance, and high percentages of minority population students. Each site is described in the report. (RJM)