Springboard Schools, originally called the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, were founded in 1995 in response to the Annenberg Challenge--a five-year effort to improve nine urban school districts financed by the philanthropist, ambassador, and publisher Walter H. Annenberg. In 2003, the group, headed by Executive Director Merrill Vargo, decided that to continue its work addressing achievement gaps in schools with large percentages of students deemed at risk of academic failure, it would need to look outside the San Francisco area. Now it works in some of the most rural school districts in California. The organization, using on-site "coaches," works in urban, suburban, and rural districts with a philosophy that school reform doesn't take hold unless district leaders are involved and supportive. Springboard Schools in two rural school systems in California's Central Valley, the Kings Canyon Unified School District and the Exeter Union Elementary School District, are described in this article.