Leigh Reagan Alley, coordinator of Teacher Education at the University of Maine at Augusta and creator of the xSELeratED Schools Framework, has been selected to join the 2026–2027 Educators’ Neighborhood, an international community of practice hosted by the Fred Rogers Institute.
Educators’ Neighborhood is a highly collaborative, year-long virtual professional development program that brings together teachers, school leaders, librarians, higher education faculty and youth-serving professionals from around the world. More than a professional learning experience, the program is designed as a sustained community of practice where participants explore child development through the enduring wisdom of Fred Rogers while learning from one another’s diverse educational contexts.
Throughout the year, cohort members engage with original archival materials from the Fred Rogers Archive—including speeches, writings, television episodes and other primary sources—to examine how timeless principles such as trust, curiosity, play, careful listening, belonging and healthy relationships can inform contemporary educational practice. Participants also contribute to ongoing dialogue about nurturing the conditions children need to learn and thrive.
The program is grounded in the Fred Rogers Institute’s Six Fundamentals of Learning and Growing: a sense of self-worth, a sense of trust, curiosity, the capacity to look and listen carefully, the capacity to play, and times of solitude. These principles, inspired by Fred Rogers’s work and refined through collaboration with educators from Educators’ Neighborhood, provide a framework for supporting children’s healthy development across classrooms, schools, families and communities.
For Alley, whose scholarship and leadership have centered on whole-child education, educator well-being, belonging and relationship-rich schools, the invitation reflects a natural alignment with her life’s work.
“Mister Rogers understood something our profession continually needs to remember: that learning begins with relationships,” Alley said. “I’m honored to join educators from around the world who are committed to helping children flourish by cultivating trust, curiosity, joy and genuine belonging. I look forward to learning from this remarkable community and bringing those insights back to Maine’s schools and to the educators I have the privilege of preparing.”
Alley serves as coordinator of Teacher Education at the University of Maine at Augusta, where she designed and leads the world’s first dedicated Master of Arts in Teaching in Whole Child Education. She is also the founder of the xSELeratED Schools Framework, a nationally recognized approach to social-emotional learning that integrates personal growth, healthy relationships and community responsibility. Her work as an educator, author and speaker focuses on helping schools become places where both children and the adults who nurture them can thrive.
Participation in Educators’ Neighborhood will further inform Alley’s ongoing work in teacher preparation, educational leadership, children’s literature and whole-child education while connecting Maine’s educational community with an international network dedicated to carrying forward Fred Rogers’s enduring legacy of compassion, reflection and relationship-centered learning.